during the day, as they roamed about the open country, and at night they were driven with cries to enclosures, into which they rushed much like a body of terrified wild animals driven by huntsmen into a trap.  Their scared temper was such as to make it impossible to lay hold of them by other means than by driving the whole herd into a clump, and lassoing the leg of the animal it was desired to seize, and throwing him to the ground with dexterous force.  With oxen and cows of this description, whose nature is no doubt shared by the bulls, I spent more than a year in the closest companionship.

I had nearly a hundred of the beasts broken in for the waggon, for packs, and for the saddle.  I travelled an entire journey of exploration on the back of one of them, with others by my side, either labouring at their tasks or walking at leisure; and with others again who were wholly unbroken, and who served the purpose of an itinerant larder.  At night, when there had been no time to erect an enclosure to hold them, I lay down in their midst, and it was interesting to observe how readily they then availed themselves of the neighbourhood of the camp fire and of man, conscious of the protection they afforded from prowling carnivora, whose cries and roars, now distant, now near, continually broke upon the stillness.  These opportunities of studying the disposition of such peculiar cattle were not wasted upon me.  I had only too much leisure to think about them, and the habits of the animals strongly attracted my curiosity.  The better I understood them, the more complex and worthy of study did their minds appear to be.  But I am now concerned only with their blind gregarious instincts, which are conspicuously distinct from the ordinary social desires.  In the latter they are deficient; thus they are not amiable to one another, but show on the whole more expressions of spite and disgust than of forbearance or fondness.  They do not suffer from an ennui, which society can remove, because their coarse feeding and their ruminant habits make them somewhat stolid.  Neither can they love society, as monkeys do, for the opportunities it affords of a fuller and more varied life, because they remain self-absorbed in the middle of their herd, while the monkeys revel together in frolics, scrambles, fights, loves, and chatterings.  Yet although the ox has so little affection for, or individual interest in, his fellows, he cannot endure even a momentary severance from his herd.  If he be separated from it by stratagem or force, he exhibits every sign of mental agony; he strives with all his might to get back again, and when he succeeds, he plunges into its middle to bathe his whole body with the comfort of closest companionship.  This passionate terror at segregation is a convenience to the herdsman, who may rest assured in the darkness or in the mist that the whole herd is safe whenever he can get a glimpse of a single ox.  It is also the cause of great inconvenience to the traveller