He leans against a tree, attended by cows, playing the pipe that charmed the frolicsome wives of the cowherds, and drives the cattle home to the gate of Bindraban in a thousand pictures exactly as to-day, save that he now wears a turban instead of a crown. And, as in the pictures, he wields a staff. Sanctity confers no immunity from the stick. One of the first duties a country child learns is to drive and beat cattle. They are docile enough and need no beating, but, from infancy, children are encouraged to shoulder as heavy a stick as they can carry and to use it unmercifully. The zeal of a child in rendering service is usually one of the most beautiful things in life, but, though the father applauds, it is an ugly sight to see a tiny boy belabouring a cow or ox with all his little strength, while lisping gross terms of abuse learnt from his parents. That he may not be able to inflict much pain is no extenuation of a practice which has hardened the people in a stupid abuse of the stick.
But while it is lawful for a Hindu to take a stick to his cow, it is in the highest degree improper for him to kick it. One of the curses invoked in the Rāmāyana on those who approve of the exile of Rāma is,—"may he touch a cow with his feet!"—and so incur the deepest Brahmanical damnation. To stumble over a sleeping cow is still held unlucky, but not, as formerly, a deadly sin. There is no prohibition against kicking an ox.
The beauty of the cow counts almost as much as her usefulness in popular estimation, and the best breeds are really handsome. It is true that a British amateur, accustomed to the level back of the English beast, at first looks unfavourably on the hump and the falling hind-quarter. The head seems too large and the body too short. But he acknowledges at once the clean, thoroughbred legs, the fine expression of the eye, the air of breeding in the broad convex brow and slender muzzle, the character given by the deep thin dewlap, the smooth mole-like skin, and in the large breeds an undefinable majesty of mien. In addition to their high caste and shapely look, the hind legs are much straighter and less "cow-hocked" than those of the English animal, and are not swung so far out in trotting. On occasion the animal can jump a fence with a carriage of the limbs like that of the horse. So in a very short time the Briton drops his prejudices and is even reconciled to the hump, which, like that of the camel and the fat tail of the dūmba sheep, has some mysterious relation to the varying conditions of a precarious food supply. They say vaguely it is a reserve of sustenance, but it would take a physiologist to explain how it acts. Some insist that the sloping quarter is the result of ages of scanty or irregular feeding, but it is now, at all events, a fixed anatomical peculiarity. Indian cattle breed freely with European stock, but it is not yet settled whether improvement in milking power, which is all it seems worth while to cross for, is really promoted by a strain of European blood. Experiments of this kind have been tried in the hills, where the tiny mountain cattle are absurdly poor milkers. The small Styrian or some of the Swiss or Scandinavian breeds would probably be best suited for this purpose. Some fine English beasts have been imported into the burning plains, where falling into the hands of natives of position, they have been promptly killed by over-feeding, heat, and want of exercise. Moreover the English beast, bred for beef, is only shapely from a butcher's point of view. The British butcher and farmer are more pedantic than Greek grammarians, but happily their lore and standards of beauty are inapplicable to India.
It is with the cattle as with the people of India, the more you learn about them the more you find to interest you. But in regard to the cow and the ox one's admiration is unstinted, nor need it be qualified by hesitation and reserve. To the stranger the great variety of breeds and their adaptation to a wide range of needs and conditions are not at first apparent. He sees an ox and another ox as he sees a native and another native, without noticing that they belong to distinct families. Orientals have a passion for classifying things, and see scores of differences in rice, cotton, wheat, cattle, and horses, which are barely perceptible even to trained English eyes. But among cattle, though there is a bewildering variety of local breeds, some broad differences may be easily learned. The backward slope of the horns of the large and small breeds of Mysore cattle,—perhaps the most popular type in use,—the royal bearing of the splendid white or fawn oxen of Guzerat, and the transport and artillery cattle bred in the Government farms at once strike the eye. These are the aristocrats of the race, but they have appetites proportioned to their size and are too costly for the ordinary cultivator. They trot in bullock coaches or draw the springless and uncomfortable but delightfully picturesque native răth or canopied ox-cart, the wagons of the Government commissariat and of the various Government baggage services. On the wide alluvial plains, where the people are thickly planted, a small, slender, and colourless cow seems to be the usual poor man's animal. The well-to-do keep breeds with foreign names and of stouter build. On the great basin of volcanic trap or basalt, which includes much of Western India, the cattle are more square in shape, large in bone, and varied in colour.
PUNJAB BAILI (SPRINGLESS OX-CART)
The richer pastures and cold winters of Kashmir and the hill country near develop a sturdy, square-headed, short-legged race with a coarse coat like that of the English cow. In the Himálaya, where the grass is deficient in nourishing power, there are breeds of tiny, neatly formed animals with coats that look like black or brown cotton velvet. These pasture on the mountain-side, climbing almost as cleverly as goats, and their grazing paths, trodden for centuries, have covered leagues of steep slope with a scale-work pattern of wonderful regularity when seen from far. Cattle are sent to the uplands to graze in the hot weather and some good sorts are systematically bred in the inter-India hills, but the beast at its best is a true Hindu of the hot plains. The "green country" in the Punjab, the Kistna river in the south, and those gardens of India, Oudh and Guzerat, produce the finest breeds.
COMPARATIVE SIZES OF THE LARGEST AND SMALLEST BREEDS OF INDIAN OXEN