HISTORY. 251 



are practised, though with somewhat less of inhumanity than 

 in Spain.* The bulls are of the fine race of the Campagna 

 di Roma, which are of larger size than those of Spain. They 

 are cruelly baited, but never put to death, though the less 

 manly practice is sometimes adopted of setting upon them 

 with large dogs, chiefly of the Corsican breed, which pin the 

 bulls by the ears and lips. The dogs, however, are often 

 the victims, the infuriated bulls catching them with their 

 long horns, tossing them in the air, and goring them to 

 death. 



The Ox, in certain cases, regains his liberty, and multi- 

 plies in the natural state. Thus, in the forests of Spain and 

 Portugal, emancipated oxen, it has been said, are numerous. 

 They have become more wild, swift, and wary, but have not 

 deviated from the external characters of the subdued race. 

 When taken, and reduced to captivity, they soon reassume 

 the general habits of the domesticated breeds. In Italy, 

 great numbers of cattle may be said to be nearly wild : they 

 are the inhabitants of those flat and pestilential tracts which 

 stretch between the Appenines and the sea, from Naples, 

 northward, including the well-known Campagna di Roma. 

 To this dreary tract is applied the general term Maremma, 

 which, during a period of the year, is the abode of pestilence 

 and death, and is thinly strewed with inhabitants, the vic- 

 tims of terrible diseases. The cattle are under the charge 

 of armed herdsmen, who, when the animals are to be taken 

 to the towns, pursue them on horseback, fasten them to one 

 another by the horns, and goad them onward with their long 

 spears. 



But it is in the fertile plains of South America, that the phe- 

 nomenon presents itself, on the grandest scale, of the escape 

 of oxen from captivity, and of their multiplication in the 

 state of nature. The origin of those amazing herds which 

 cover the plains of Paraguay, Buenos Ayres, and other noble 

 provinces, is traced, by Spanish writers, to the arrival, by the 

 way of Brazil, of seven cows and a bull from Andalusia, at 



