XIV 
THE OX. 
HISTORY. 
upon his new enemy, who is in like manner relieved, and so on, until at length the bull, tired out and bewildered, is separated from 
his fellows. A sufficient number having been treated in this manner, they are hemmed in by the armed horsemen, and goaded 
forward to the town or place where the future combat is to take place A 
The fights of the Circus itself have been described by all travellers who have visited these beautiful countries. The bull, 
admitted into the arena, is received with the shouts of the assembled spectators. Bewildered and amazed, he rushes forward, 
but is at once confronted by the Picadore on foot, armed with short darts. The animal rushes wildly on his opponent, who, with 
matchless dexterity and grace, avoids the onset, and plants his short darts in the neck and body of the victim. Bellowing with 
rage and pain, the wounded animal gallops round the slaughter-house and is confronted by other Picadores with the like success, 
until the spectators, satiated, permit him to be relieved from persecution, or direct him to be slain. But, in other cases, armed 
horsemen enter the lists, and attack the bull with lances. In this manner, the youthful cavaliers display to the best advantage 
their courage and address. But this sport is more dangerous and bloody than the other, for often one or more horses are mortally 
wounded, while shouts and screams of joy attest the delight of the spectators. In modern Home, the same sports are practised, 
though with somewhat less of inhumanity than in Spain. The bulls are of the fine race of the Campagna di Roma, which are of 
larger size and strength than those of Spain. They are cruelly baited, but never put to death, though the less manly practice is 
sometimes adopted of setting upon them with large dogs, chiefly of the Corsican breed, which pin the bulls by the ears and lips. 
The dogs, however, are often the victims, the infuriated bulls catching them with their long horns, tossing them in the air, and 
goring them to death. 
The Ox, in certain cases, regains his liberty, and multiplies in the natural state. Thus, in the forests of Spain and Portugal, 
emancipated oxen, it has been said, are numerous. They have become more wild, swift, and wary, but have not deviated from 
the external characters of the subdued race. When taken, and reduced to captivity, they soon reassume the general habits of the 
domesticated breeds. In Italy, great numbers of cattle may be said to be nearly wild: they are the inhabitants of those flat and 
pestilential tracts which stretch between the Apennines and the sea, from Naples northward, including the well known Campagna di 
Roma. To this dreary tract is applied the general term Maremma, which, during a period of the year, is the abode of pestilence 
and death, and is thinly strewed with inhabitants, the victims of terrible diseases. The cattle are under the charge of armed herds¬ 
men, who, when the animals are to be taken to the towns, pursue them on horseback, fasten them to one another by the horns, and 
goad them onward with their long spears. 
But it is in the fertile plains of South America, that the phenomenon presents itself on the grandest scale of the escape of oxen 
from captivity, and of their multiplication in the state of nature. The origin of those amazing herds which cover the plains of 
Paraguay, Buenos Ayres, and other noble provinces, is traced, by Spanish writers, to the arrival, by the way of Brazil, of seven cows 
and a bull from Andalusia, at the city of Assumption, on the Paraguay, in the year 1556. The owner of these animals having 
driven them overland to the Great Rio Grande or Parana, constructed a rude raft, and entrusted them to the care of one Gaete, 
who descended the Parana, and then, ascending the Paraguay, landed his precious charge at the city of Assumption. As his 
recompense for many months of toil and danger, Gaete received one cow, which has given rise to the saying common in these 
provinces, that a thing is as dear as Gaete’ s cow. Whether all the vast herds of South America are derived from this humble 
source, may be questioned. But however this be, it is certain that the cattle of Europe soon multiplied amazingly, found their 
way to the woods and rich Pampas, where they increased in the state of liberty, and now extend in countless multitudes from the 
southern boundary of Buenos Ayres, to far within the tropics to the north, stretching, in many cases, from the Atlantic to the 
Cordilleras. They are found in the Brazilian as well as in the Spanish provinces, in the wild as well as in a domesticated state, 
and have extended beyond the Andes into the beautiful countries on the Pacific, where they are reared in the state of domestica¬ 
tion. But it is in the more temperate parts of Paraguay, and the countries of the Rio de la Plata, extending westward, that their 
numbers have become the greatest, and that those marvellous herds of them are to be beheld, which have escaped entirely from the 
dominion of man, and fly from his presence like beasts of chase. They migrate in search of fresh pastures with the changes of the 
season, the strongest of the bulls assuming the guidance of the herd. They have deviated little from the Andalusian type, except that 
they have assumed a greater uniformity of colour, and that the bulls exhibit less of ferocity and boldness, as is common with other 
animals naturalized in America. Their colour is a blackish-brown; their size is nearly the same as in the original race, exceeding 
it in the more temperate countries, and falling short of it in the warmer. The power of the female to yield milk constantly dimi¬ 
nishes with the heat of the climate, until, at the tropics, it does not amount to one-third part of the ordinary quantity. They are 
reclaimed with such facility, that the wildest herds may be domesticated in a month. They are hunted for their hides by people 
* Library of Entertaining Knowledge. Menageries. 
