270 THE ox. 



ous nations made not only cheese but butter, which they 

 used as an agreeable food. He says, that they made it from 

 the milk of the Goat, the Sheep, and the Cow ; but most 

 commonly from that of the Cow, although the milk of the 

 Ewe produced the fattest butter. He describes the form of 

 the vessel employed in making it, which seems to have been 

 similar to that now in use. The northern nations were like- 

 wise acquainted with the use of cheese, although some of the 

 Roman writers declare that they knew not how to prepare 

 it, which can only mean, that they did not do so after the 

 Roman fashion ; for Pliny himself, who denies this know- 

 ledge to the Germans, describes their manner of making 

 cheese, by rendering the milk sour, and pressing the whey 

 from the curd. Caesar says of the same people, that the 

 greater part of their food consisted of milk, cheese, and flesh. 

 Strabo confirms the testimony of Caesar ; and Tacitus states 

 that the food of the Germans was of the simplest kind, 

 namely, wild fruits, game recently killed, or concrete milk, 

 which must mean milk rendered concrete by curdling it. Of 

 the Britons, Caesar observes, that those of the interior, for 

 the most part, did not sow corn, but lived on milk and flesh. 

 And Strabo states, that some of them, though they had abun- 

 dance of milk, were so ignorant as not to know how to make 

 cheese. But if some of them only were thus ignorant, the 

 rest must have possessed the knowledge ; and we learn, 

 from other sources, that the Celtse of the wilds of Britain, 

 where the Roman arms never reached, were familiar with 

 this early food of the people of the East. They had learned 

 to prepare it, it may be believed, before Romulus drew milk 

 from the teats of his Wolf, or before the city of the Seven 

 Hills had a name, 



All the ruminating animals subjected to domestication are 

 capable of yielding milk to their protectors ; and all the mem- 

 bers of the great Western, and even the Negro, family of man- 

 kind, make use of it as food. It is obtained from the domestic 

 Cow, the Asiatic and African Zebu, the Buffalo, the Yak, the 



