616 
THE CATTLE EPIDEMIC. 
In the district of Yampol, in Podolia, a large village upon one 
side of a small rivulet escaped infection, while another closely 
opposite lost its whole stock ; and a third village on the same side 
as the healthy one, and only a short distance lower down, was 
equally unfortunate. The disease appears sometimes to pursue 
a capricious course. It will also advance upon a direct track, 
without spreading infection laterally; thus, it will ravage one- 
half of a village and leave the other half free. It will then make 
a circuit, returning and attacking places that had remained unin- 
jured. It will likewise come back to the same place twice or 
thrice. I have heard some persons say that they lost their strong 
working bullocks, then their cows and calves, at different periods. 
To trace the course of the disease upon the map, however de- 
sirable, cannot be attempted with any assurance in the absence 
of official authority. I have said, and it is generally believed, 
that this time it originated in Bessarabia, whence, probably, it 
spread to the government of Podolia and Cherson, and then to Kiev 
and Volhynia. It is reported to have reached Mohilov, and that 
the central provinces of Karkoff and Poltava have not escaped the 
same infliction. In this latitude the infection has not extended so 
far eastward. The government of Ekatherinslov has only been 
partially affected, and the vice consul at Taganrog tells me that 
it has not been spoken of on the Don since 1843. 
It is with still greater hesitation that I may speak of the extent 
of the mortality. On the one hand there may be exaggeration in 
private opinion ; and, on the other, were official returns even made 
known, they must be accepted with equal caution; for func- 
tionaries in Russia, by an instinctive policy, always attenuate the 
amount of public disasters, if by necessity they are confessed. For 
this reason, no more than occasional hints are to be found in the 
provincial journals even of the existence of this disease in the 
shape of a farrier’s prescription ; yet I am assured that the loss in 
Bessarabia by the end of last year was reported to be 130,000 
head of cattle, and that since it has amounted to one-half of the 
whole stock. In the government of Cherson, in which this town 
is situated, the loss at the present day is estimated at one-third, 
which is confirmed to me by many proprietors. In two large estates 
on the Dneiper, the property of Count Woronzow, it is said that not 
less than 12,000 head of cattle have perished, of which 4000 be- 
longed to the lord and the remainder to the serfs. In the Talnya 
estate of General Leon Ylarisken the mortality exceeded 6000 
beasts. The head groom of the general had a choice herd of fifty 
milch-cows, all of which have died, with the exception of one cow 
that lost its calf by abortion. A gentleman in the vicinity prided 
himself in the possession of a herd of 240 beasts of a coloured and 
