The Teeswaters. 143 



caravan life in 1801 that the doom of the Longhorns 

 was virtually sealed. 



The Teeswaters* were cattle of great substance, 

 but somewhat ungainly in form, and were thought to 

 give less but richer milk than the Holderness. The 

 fragments of history on which their origin rests are 

 somewhat shadowy and uncertain. Some contend 

 therefrom that they must be of Dutch origin, and 

 only another version of the Holderness ; and others, 

 with equal zeal, that their tap-root is to be found in 

 the West Highlands, or that the earlier breeders 

 always fell back on its bulls for a cross if they thought 

 that their herd was losing constitution. There is 

 certainly some confirmation of this opinion in the 

 peculiarly sharp horns and ink-black noses which will 

 appear at intervals. The admirers of the " Princesses" 

 make good " the claims of long descent" as far back 

 as 1739, on Stephenson's farm at Ketton; and it is also 

 said that the ancestress of the " Duchesses" roamed 

 in Stanwick Park two hundred years ago, and that 

 none of the tribe had been out of the Northumberland 

 family until Charles Colling bought them. Be this 

 as it may, the Teeswaters' capability of development, 

 which the St. Quintin, the Pennyman, and the 

 Milbank families were among the first to recognise, 

 had suggested itself to many a long-headed Durham 

 farmer as well as the Brothers Colling ; but private 

 herd-books were hardly in vogue, and the patient 

 pilgrimage of Coates, through sunshine and shower, 

 with his grey pony and saddle-bags, has not had the 



* An eminent living authority thus writes us of the Teeswater breed 

 of sheep : "They were nearly as big as a jackass, and had nearly as 

 large bone. Gradually they went out of use, and there is not a sem- 

 blance of them left. They had raw lugs and no horns, long watery 

 wool, of which you could count the strings, some of which seemed six- 

 teen inches long. I have heard of fleeces weighing 22lbs. Some of 

 them killed with ordinary keep to 4olbs. a quarter, but they were gra- 

 dually crossed out by Leicester rams, which lessened the size, and im- 

 proved the grazing qualities." 



