THE OX. 91 



made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the 

 fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the princi- 

 pal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in 

 their place 1 For his God doth instruct him to discre- 

 tion," Isaiah xxviii. 23 26. By direct aid from 

 heaven to Adam, or his son Cain, men were taught to 

 construct the plough, and to bend the neck of the ox to 

 the yoke. 



Nor was this any ordinary benefit. " Deprived of the 

 aid of these useful animals," says Buffon, " the poor and 

 the rich would alike have great difficulty to subsist. The 

 earth in France would remain uncultivated ; the fields, 

 and even the gardens, would be dry and sterile. It is 

 on the ox that the work of the country falls ; he is the 

 most useful domestic that the farmer possesses j and he 

 performs all the labour of agriculture. In former ages 

 he constituted the chief riches of mankind ; and still he 

 is the basis of the riches of those nations which only 

 flourish and are supported by the cultivation of lands, 

 and the number of their cattle. It is in these that all 

 real wealth consists ; every other kind, even silver and 

 gold, are only arbitrary representations, which have no 

 value, but that which is conferred upon them by the 

 productions of the earth." 



The earliest account we have of the ancient Britons 



