84 
ST. HELENA. 
but like many other useful creatures, their value is greatly under- 
rated. There are about 400 of them in the Island, and the labouring 
man could not get on without his donkey or donkeys, which are 
driven up and down the steep roads in packs of twenty or thirty at 
a time. Firewood, vegetables, hay, milk, poultry, and all country 
produce that is not carried by cart or dray, are conveyed into the 
town on their backs, and they fetch out supplies of food, manure, 
and other necessaries for the tiller of the soil. It has often struck 
me that if the donkeys of St. Helena could express a wish, it would 
be for a branch establishment of the Boyal Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Animals. Poor creatures ! IJp and down those steep roads 
they travel with that patience which only donkey-nature knows, often 
having to bear an overload independent of the owner striding across 
the top of it, while an unfeeling urchin of a boy, with a big stick, 
whacks the poor brute up the hill, sometimes bleeding, to its home ; 
there it is unloaded, and, with a kick from its owner, sent to browse 
upon furze bushes or anything else it can pick up on the nearest 
common until next day, when it has, perhaps, to go through a similar 
programme. No attempt is made to improve the breed, and the 
donkeys of St. Helena are small though hardy animals. Their number 
has been of late considerably reduced through their being employed 
to carry in lime from Lot’s Wife Ponds and Sandy Bay, so that 
their price has risen from 10s. to 21. or 3/. each. They were intro- 
duced soon after the discovery of the Island by the Portuguese. 
Mules arc not much used in St. Helena, though a few have lately 
been imported. 
Bos, Linn. 
B. taurus, Linn. — Oxen and cattle in number average about 
1300, but a larger quantity could be well reared and supported in the 
Island, and prevent, to some extent, the large importation that 
annually takes place from the Cape of Good Hope. The St. Helena 
cow (of which there is no record when it was introduced) is a rather 
small well-built animal, adapted to the hilly country which it inhabits. 
It gives a scanty supply of milk, which might, without doubt, be in- 
creased by better feeding than that to which it is generally accustomed. 
Ovis, Linn. 
O. aries, Linn. — Sheep run almost wild over the hilly outskirts 
of the Island. It has been estimated that there are about 5000, 
