234- TRAVELS IN UPPER 



new ; he alone knows how to employ iron in 

 achieving the only conquest which Nature avows. 



It is well known in what estimation oxen were 

 held in ancient Egypt ; they furnished deities to 

 that superstitious people ; their worship was uni- 

 versally diffused ; many cities had their peculiar 

 divinities of this species whose persons were sacred. 

 The celebrity of the on Apis is known all the world 

 over, which became the first of this herd of gods: 

 he had his altars ; maintained his priests ; he deli- 

 vered oracles. No heifer was ever put to death, 

 and the law declared it sacrilege to dare to eat their 

 flesh # . They performed funeral obsequies in ho- 

 nour of ordinary oxen when they happened to die; 

 for excepting those which were offered in sacrifice 

 to the gods, scarcely any were killed ; it was un- 

 lawful to put to death any which had ever worn 

 the yoke ; this was a reward for their services, a 

 kind of grateful acknowledgment, far remote from 

 the harshness, from the ferocious ingratitude of 

 most of our farmers, toward the laborious animals 

 to which they are indebted for the means of sub- 

 sistence ; and this harshness and insensibility have 

 a much greater influence than is commonly ima- 

 gined on the public morals. The Egyptian go- 



* To this very day, the murder of a man or of a calf, is the 

 only crime which the Hindoos punish with death. Mackinr 

 tosh's Travels, vol. i. p. 312. 



vernment* 



