I have sketched a diagram which shows roughly the range of size. Still larger beasts than the largest shown occur at times. The smallest represents a miniature race, not much bigger than Newfoundland dogs, but exquisitely finished in every detail of ox form and full of life and spirit. When harnessed to vehicles of a suitable size these tiny creatures trot at a great pace. All Indian oxen can be trained to trot. The sloping quarter and straight hock may possibly count for something in their more horse-like gait. Between these two extremes are breeds of every possible size, adapted for many uses. An old Anglo-Indian can scarcely be trusted to recall the freshness of first impressions; but that one of the first things to strike a stranger is the hurrying ox was proved by a distinguished English tourist, who told me of the interest and amusement he found in the traffic of Bombay streets, especially in the rekla, a small hack carriage here sketched. The neatness of this vehicle, its sensible canopy to protect the backs of the cattle from the sun, its low fares, its speed, and the continual cry of the driver, impressed my friend so much that he was inclined to describe it as the Hindu hansom. So it is,—in usage; but it is really of Portuguese descent, for the Hindu, left to himself, never dreamed of springs. Nor is it the only good thing that Western India owes to the Portuguese.
THE BOMBAY REKLA
The points of cows and oxen, their varieties of horn, breed, shape, and character are expressed in a multitude of sayings whose darkness and esoteric quality seem at times to justify the son of Sirach in asking—how can they be wise whose talk is of oxen? Many of the canons in use are the unimpeachable result of ages of observation and experience, but others seem to be merely fantastic nonsense referring to trivial accidents of hair, horn, or colour. A jumbling of sternest use and wildest fancy is one of the most bewildering of Oriental traits. The cultivator, who, by the necessities of his life, is sordidly practical, will at one and the same moment deliver himself of a grim sweat-and-blood axiom, born of penury and edged with despair, and some blind blundering ineptitude which, though sanctioned by immemorial usage, could be disproved by five minutes' observation of fact. And the language in which these sayings are shaped is strangely and sometimes almost unintelligibly elliptical and idiomatic. They have been turned over in so many mouths that only the bare bones of meaning are left, and are so perplexed by broad, local dialects that an accustomed ear is needed for their comprehension.
There is no shorter cut to the goodwill of the cultivator than an instructed interest in cattle. In the West, too, strangers will fraternise while handling an animal with judicious appreciation of its points. It should be remembered, however, that rustic cattle are not used to Europeans and dislike their odour,—or lack of odour. A saying runs, "Keep seven cubits distance from an elephant, five from a horned beast, twenty from a woman, and thirty from a drunken man,"—and, in so far as concerns the beast, the advice is doubly applicable to European amateurs. To be fair, the Indian animal is naturally inoffensive, and always gives warning of irritation by a peculiar hissing snort. I once afforded some amusement to a group of friends by disregarding this sound. We were on a walking trip at the foot of the Western Ghauts, and inquired the way up the Bhau Mullen hill from a boy in charge of a string of empty pack oxen. While talking to him I noticed he was in difficulties with his leading beast, a little black bull with villainously sharp horns, who hissed like a wild cat and presently broke away and came at me with head down. I presented my open white umbrella and dodged aside, but the creature still came on, so I jumped one of the high-banked dykes of the dry rice-fields among which we were walking, but he came over too, jumping as smartly and cleverly as an English hunter; so I took another "lep" and another, while he followed with tail brandished aloft, warming to the chase with each presentation of the umbrella and each dodging turn and leap. At last he became entangled with his empty packs, and his driver secured him, while I breathlessly rejoined my friends, who were doubled up in helpless laughter, vowing that neither circus nor bull-fight was ever half so entertaining. Not being a spectator, I missed the cream of the joke.
With natives both cows and oxen are usually placid enough, and very few cases of goring are reported. Calves are handled freely, the mother scarcely noticing it, except when the intruder is a stranger. But the right of the cow to resent interference with her calf is recognised in popular talk. This indeed is the case in England, among all sensible farmers. I heard of one, the other day, whose son, handling a calf, was severely horned by the mother. A lady calling on the farmer sympathised with his son's misfortune and used very strong expressions as to the abominable behaviour of the cow. The farmer listened and at last said in a judicial tone: "Why, no, marm;—the cow were in her dooty, for we must all purtect our yong." There is a touch of the Roman father as well as of the natural philosopher in this wise saying, for though the son was sore in bed and the parent was sorry for him, he knew that those who are skilful in cow management seldom suffer from their horns.
Cattle are made to take part in curious rites, and enjoy many holidays of a semi-religious kind, when they are adorned with necklaces of marigolds and jessamine, and printed on flank and shoulder with an open hand dipped in red, so that a modern Moses might be moved to wrath by something very like cow-worship. Nor is this to be wondered at when the value of milk, which takes a high and most important place in the Indian food scale is considered. "Cows' milk is as Mothers' milk" say the women. "Milk and children are from fortune" is another of their sayings. "May you bathe in milk and rear many children" is a benediction among women,[2] and in pure pride a swaggerer will say, "I have drunk more milk than you will ever get of water"—in other words, I have always been well off, while you are a scrub. When a cow is milked into the hollow of the hand, the milk, drunk at once, is supposed to be peculiarly nourishing in quality. "One can stand a kick from one's cow when she is in milk" has possibilities of application beyond mere cows. Of a hungry country it is said, "One doesn't even get sparrow's milk there." A Bengal saying recalling the French "When the cork is drawn, the wine must be drunk" is, "Milk once drawn from the dug never goes back." A relic of the Vedic times lingers in the name Kamdhain applied to cows that are exceptionally good milkers. Kamdhenu was the wondrously productive cow of Indra that granted all desires.
[2] Mr. B. Malabari mentions having heard this benediction pronounced in Durbar over the present Gaekwar of Baroda.
COW AND CALF