“When any one happens to be wounded, or is grown feeble through age or sickness, the rest of the herd set upon it and gore it to death.
“The weight of the bulls is generally from forty to fifty stone the four quarters; of the cows about thirty. The beef is finely marbled, and of excellent flavour.”
We visited the park in 1836, and were at great pains to get a sight of this noble herd. We were told that the keeper was in the park and would get us a view of it; but on going into it, we found him, and some others of the household busily engaged in shooting fawns. For this purpose some men on horseback were galloping round a herd of deer, and driving them in a particular direction, where a keeper lay in ambush, near a narrow opening between the woods, and when they came near enough, shot with his rifle such fawns as he wanted. It was a scene of great animation: the galloping men—the keeper seen cautiously peeping out, to watch for the approach of the herd—the herd here collected into a dense group, in watchfulness and alarm—and again streaming off in a long line across the park, in some direction which seemed most to promise escape. The cries of the old—the shriller cries of the young—the sudden flash and report from the thicket—the fall of the fawn—and the flying of the herd in some other direction, made up a lively though painful scene.
But this spoiled our peculiar sport. The wild cattle, accustomed to be fired at themselves occasionally, alarmed at the sound of the guns, had retired to the most obscure woodland retreats of the park. Several persons told us that they had seen the whole herd a few minutes before, in the highest part of the park; but we traversed the woods in every direction, and penetrated into their darkest recesses without getting a glimpse of them. This we did for a couple of hours, and spite of the warnings of those who were well acquainted with them, so great was my anxiety to have a view of these fine animals. Two sawyers, who were sawing timber at a pit up in a glade of the park, told us that a few mornings before, on coming to their work, they found several bulls in the glade, which began to shake their heads, and tear up the ground in a style which induced them to betake themselves to the wood as nimbly as possible. We were told too, that Mr. Landseer, while sketching some of these cattle, found it advisable to retreat more than once; and that people are not only frequently pursued, but that one man had been killed by them the previous summer. However, trusting to my ability to mount a tree, in case of need, I determined to hold on till I found them; and having thus gone through all the woods but one, not excepting Robin Hood’s Cleuch, for Robin has a traditionary retreat in many a place of the north. I was certain they must be there, and therefore gave way to the remonstrances of wiser heads, and retired to a distance to watch their issuing forth. The firing of the guns in the lower part of the park had ceased, and we were assured that the cattle would not be long before they made their appearance. And sure enough, in about half an hour, this grand herd of wild cattle came streaming out of this very wood. There were upwards of a hundred of them; and they spread themselves at equal distances across the steep glade, between this and the next wood, and commenced a steady graze, ever and anon lifting up a cautious head, to ascertain the actual absence of danger. It was a sight well worthy of a long journey to see. Their number, their uniformity of colour and shape, the wild shy look of the cows, the sturdy strength of the bulls—some of them of a large size—and their clear snowy hue, which made them conspicuous for many miles distant, as we occasionally turned, on our way over the moors to Wooller, and saw them still grazing in the very same spot and order. They reminded us of the herds of the sun, amongst which Ulysses’ hungry crew made such havoc in the meads of Trinacria.
We were told that the hunting of the bulls had been renewed by Lord Ossulston, the eldest son of the Earl of Tankerville, with whom it was a very favourite pursuit—certainly the grandest species of chase yet left in Britain, and the only one which the sense of danger incurred can heighten and ennoble to anything like the same level as that of hunting the tiger in India, or the bear in the northern countries of Europe. It seems, as well he may, that the Earl is proud of this fine herd of cattle, and, it is said, refuses on any terms to furnish any of his noble neighbours with a pair of them to stock their parks similarly. It is to be hoped that this interesting remnant of the native herd will long be preserved in its present magnificent number and purity of breed.
At the Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Newcastle, in August 1838, a paper was read on these wild cattle by Mr. L. Hindmarsh. The only additional facts respecting them were contained in a letter of Lord Tankerville to the writer. His lordship stated that nothing had for generations been known of the origin of these cattle in his family; and that they were mentioned in no family document. That there was great probability of their location there being very ancient. He describes them, as we found them, retiring into the woods on any alarm, and having a faculty of traversing the woods so quietly that it is difficult to obtain a sight of them. He states that he himself has not been able in summer time to get a sight of them for weeks together. That on the contrary, in winter time, being fed in the inner park, they become pretty familiar, and will let you go near them, especially when on horseback. His lordship describes them as very uncertain in their disposition, sometimes struck with sudden panics, and at others very fierce. “When they come down into the lower part of the park, which they do at stated hours, they move like a regiment of cavalry in single files, the bulls leading the van, or in retreat it is the bulls which bring up the rear. Lord Ossulston was witness to a curious way in which they took possession, as it were, of some new pasture recently laid open to them. It was in the evening about sunset. They began by lining the front of a small wood, which seemed quite alive with them, when all of a sudden, they made a dart forward altogether in a line, and charging close by him across the plain, they spread out, and after a little time began feeding.” His lordship says, “Many stories might be told of hair-breadth escapes, accidents of sundry kinds from these cattle,” and gives an instance of a bull attacking a keeper, whom he tossed three times, then knelt down on him, breaking several of his ribs, and would soon have killed him, had not a number of gentlemen from the castle with rifles succeeded in destroying the furious beast, but not till they had lodged six or seven bullets in his skull.