RIDE UP COUNTRY. 67 



just opposite where I was staying. It had been caught that 

 afternoon in the priest's garden, and being of the hairy, 

 uneatable kind, which, with its long claws, digs up graves 

 to indulge its ghoulish propensities, it was sentenced to a 

 painful and cruel death, by being gradually torn to pieces 

 by dogs. Poor beast ! At length, by my request, he was 

 despatched ; but only after all the bones which could be 

 got at under his armour-plated shell had been broken by 

 the dogs, and he was bleeding from a hundred bites. 

 After all, he only followed his instincts in disposing of 

 buried carcases ; he could not distinguish between a Christian 

 body or an ox's carcase, and we will hope he has a happier 

 future state, as the Rev. J. G. Wood so strongly and ably 

 sets forth in his work, " Man and Beast, Here and Hereafter." 

 While musing thus, I may also refer to the patient oxen, of 

 which hundreds of thousands every day are tortured by 

 their native drivers, while dragging the heavy carts with 

 great toil and labour up and down those fearful hills, over 

 the merest apologies for roads. When putting forth the 

 utmost of their strength, they are beaten, and prodded, and 

 pulled about as if their poor yoke-laden necks were made of 

 iron. May we not hope that they too, after their present 

 life of endless toil and suffering, may enjoy a future state of 

 rest and peace ? It is at least a beautiful thought, and I 

 do not see that man's prerogative as the highest of all 

 created beings, both physically and intellectually, suffers 

 aught by admitting the lower animals to a future con- 

 dition of compensation for the ills they undergo in the 

 present life — a life too often embittered by the thoughtless, 

 and, alas ! also frequently by the wanton, cruelty of those 

 who are termed " the lords of creation." 



But such is the strength of prejudice or of instruction, 

 that the priest, a man of remarkable gentleness and bene- 



