THE OX. 
XV 
HISTORY. 
of the country, or Gauchos, who pursue them on horseback at speed, forming two lines, meeting at an angle in the rear. The 
person who is behind at the angle or meeting of the lines, is armed with a sharp instrument of a crescent-shape, fixed to a long 
handle. With this he hamstrings the oxen as he comes up to them, the party all the time continuing the pursuit. When a suffi¬ 
cient number has been maimed and left on the ground, the party returns, the principal hunter piercing the prostrate oxen with a 
spear, and others instantly dismounting and stripping off the hide; the carcasses are left behind as of no value, to be devoured by 
vultures and other beasts of prey. 
Those cattle which are in a semidomesticated state, and are the property of individuals, are kept in large herds. They are 
under the charge of a superintendent with several assistants, whose province it is to prevent them from straying, to protect them 
from the Ounces, Wolves, Wild Dogs, and other beasts of prey, and to catch those which are to be slaughtered. They are caught 
by means of the well-known lasso, which incessant practice teaches those wild people to throw with matchless dexterity. It consists 
of a plaited thong of hides, forty or fifty feet in length, with a noose and iron-ring at one end. Swinging the noose end round and 
round with the right arm, the other end being coiled over the left arm, and fixed to the saddle girth, they throw their singular missile, 
themselves all the while at speed, and entangle the victim by the horns, the neck, or by one or both legs, as may be wished, and in 
an instant hurl him to the ground. One superintendent with four assistants is reckoned sufficient for the tendence of from 4000 
to 5000 head of cattle, often extending over a space of eighteen square miles of country; and this establishment, according to 
Azara, requires about 70 horses, the Gauchos almost living on horseback. Individual proprietors have often enormous herds, 
some, according to Spix, as many as 40,000 head. In Paraguay, the practice is to drive the cattle once a-week, or oftener, to an 
elevated circuit, termed the Rodeo; in other cases this is only done once a-year, when the bulls are emasculated, generally at the 
age of two years, and the cattle branded with the owner’s mark. These animals do not differ in appearance from those that are 
entirely wild. 
But, besides these wilder herds, it is common for the owners to keep a number of tame cattle, which are used for draught, or 
for yielding milk, which is partly made into cheese. But so little do the people of the country understand the making of butter, 
that the Emperor of the Brazils, in possession of the finest herds in the world, obtains the butter for his own use from Ireland, 
after a voyage of several months. The flesh of these tame cattle is preferred to that of the wild. They are kept in enclosures 
during the night, and permitted to pasture during the day in the meadows and adjoining plains. 
From these herds of cattle are derived those enormous supplies of skins which form the chief export of the countries of the 
Rio de la Plata and the interior. Azara informs us, that, in' 1796, the export of hides from Buenos Ayres and Monte Video 
alone was from 800,000 to a million annually; but to form an idea of the magnitude of the continued carnage of those noble herds, 
we must consider the vast and prodigal consumption of the interior, where no value is set upon the lives of animals so bounteously 
supplied. They afford the only animal food of the settled inhabitants, who use it with a waste that exceeds belief, selecting the 
favourite parts, and leaving the rest in the wilderness. The animals, too, are killed in multitudes by the Indians, who plunder 
them from the farms, or pursue them in mere wantonness. Further, the mortality amongst them is excessive, from the attacks 
of wild beasts, the torments of venomous insects which pursue them in clouds, and the effects of the barbarous treatment of their 
wild keepers. The time, indeed, it may be beleived, will come when those rich and beautiful lands, so blessed by the bounties of 
Nature, so cursed by the ignorance of man, in place of yielding ship-loads of hides, will support an industrious population capable 
of appreciating and using the natural gifts of their country. 
The Caucasian Ox has thus found a new habitat more suitable for the increase of his numbers, than in the most fertile plains 
of Asia and Europe. He has also been carried to North America and its islands, wherever the settlements of Europeans are found, 
and equally adapts himself to these situations as to those which are nearer to his native climes. In the United States he is culti¬ 
vated with considerable care, and has the same useful characters communicated to him by artificial treatment, and the selecting of 
the parent stock, as in the countries of Europe where attention has been paid to the development of his properties. 
But in the warmer regions of Eastern Asia the Ox appears with such distinct form and characters, as to leave the naturalist 
in doubt whether he ought to be regarded as a distinct species, rather than as a variety or race. He is generally termed the Zebu, 
from an Indian name; and though he differs greatly in size in different localities, he presents every where the same general cha¬ 
racters which ancient figures shew him to have possessed from the earliest times. 
The Indian Ox has a flatter and more oblique forehead than the Caucasian; his horns are more straight, short, and directed 
backward; his ears are very long, and pendent. He is furnished with a large fleshy hump upon his shoulders, his haunch is very 
round, like that of the Gayal, and his limbs are slender and graceful. His skin is soft, and he is furnished with a large dewlap 
hanging down in folds. 
He is found throughout the whole of Hindostan, and stretches all eastward through China, to Japan and other islands of the 
