Beast and Man in India Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SPORTING MAN]

Sheep are numerous in India, but they are seldom kept by the cultivator or farmer, for the combination of agricultural with pastoral life, common in other countries, is almost unknown. In the towns of the plains rams are kept as fighting animals, and the sport is a source of gratification to many. A Muhammadan "buck" going out for a stroll with his fighting ram makes a picture of point-device foppery not easily surpa.s.sed by the sporting fancy of the West. The ram is neatly clipped, with a judicious reservation of salient tufts touched with saffron and mauve dyes, and besides a necklace of large blue beads, it bears a collar of hawk-bells.

Its master wears loosely round his neck or on his shoulders a large handkerchief of the brightest colours procurable, his vest is of scarlet or sky-blue satin embroidered with colour and gold, his slender legs are encased in skin-tight drawers, a gold-embroidered cap is poised on one side of his head, his long, black hair, parted in the middle and s.h.i.+ning with scented hair-oil, is sleeked behind his ears, where it has a drake's tail curl which throws in relief his gold earrings, and in addition to two or three necklaces, he usually wears a gold chain. Patent leather shoes and a cane complete the costume. As he first affronts the suns.h.i.+ne, he looks undeniably smart, but his return, I have observed, is not always so triumphant. The ram naturally loses interest in a stroll which has not another ram in perspective, and it is not easy to preserve an air of distinction when angrily propelling homeward a heavy and reluctant sheep.

The great G.o.d Indra rides on a ram, but, for the bulk of the people, Indra has been dead for many a day.

CHAPTER VI

OF COWS AND OXEN

"By those dumb mouths be ye forgiven Ere ye are heard pleading with Heaven."

SIR E. ARNOLD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BOMBAY MILK WOMAN]

In Europe it is a half-forgotten legend that flocks and herds ranked first among early forms of wealth, and it is only in dissertations on the origin of money we are reminded that the root of pecuniary is _pecus_. But in agricultural and pastoral India, dependent on cattle for milk and labour, and on sheep and goats for flesh-meat, a hundred sayings, echoes of the now forgotten prayers of the Vedic hymns, repeat the ancient estimates of cattle. One of the first sensations of the tourist in India is the ubiquity of the bull, the cow, and the ox. They are, in fact, foremost figures in both the rustic and urban scenery of the country. Yet Lord Macaulay, when painting this scenery for English readers, set down everything but its most essential and familiar features. There is a splendid picture in his essay on Warren Hastings, where the rich oriental detail of palm-trees, idols, elephants, maidens with pitchers, and the rest, is like a profusion of jewels set in florid beaten work of gilded metal, but the cow and ox were not thought fine enough for the place in letters that they own in life.

The people have a pa.s.sion,--no other word is strong enough,--for the possession of cattle. Indian cities, full of folk, are also vast cow byres or mistals, and hitherto sanitary reform has not ventured to interfere. The cattle come and go at their own pleasure, and rub shoulders with humanity with an ineffable air of security and fellows.h.i.+p. Nearly everybody is, or thinks he is, a judge of a cow; there is no more popular subject of discourse and none with so copious a terminology. Every possible and some apparently impossible varieties of form and colour; of hair, horn, tail, udder, dewlap, hump, eyes, and limbs has its separate name or phrase.

The peculiar sanct.i.ty of the animal may be a degradation of a poetical Aryan idea, and the cow,--originally used as a symbol of the clouds attendant on the Sun-G.o.d,--may have succeeded by a process of materialisation to honours for which she was not intended, but she is now firmly enthroned in the Hindu pantheon. There is, indeed, a strong tendency among modern Hindus of the reforming order to re-affirm her sanct.i.ty as a national s.h.i.+bboleth, and to denounce cow-killing in the strongest terms.

The beef-fed Briton who wishes to sympathise with the Hindu does not quite like to be thrust aside as one of the impure (_Maleccha_),--learning with some uneasiness that millions of most estimable people would sooner die than touch the roast-beef of Old England. The d.a.m.ning mark set against the English admits of but faint extenuation. They have done justice and loved mercy, they have protected the lowly and weak, saved the widow from the fire, fed the famine-stricken, taught the ignorant, and made that a nation which was not a nation;--but they kill and eat the cow, and are therefore, in a levitical sense, abominable. The Muhammadan, however, is accounted worse, for he is of the people and among them; his creed is in opposition to theirs, and there are rankling memories of a thousand insults to it wrought on the sacred cow.

The Briton is an outland stranger from beyond the seven seas, he lives apart and knows no better; the Moslem eats beef in pure spite! This is manifestly unjust, but who can reason with a prejudice sanctioned by centuries of usage and tradition? At this moment cow-killing is the dangerous question of the country, always apt to provoke tumult and bloodshed. I have heard the agitation for total abstinence from intoxicating drink in the West mentioned as a parallel to the anti-cow-killing movement in India, but, though touched with a similar unreasonableness, teetotallers have hitherto refrained from breaking the heads of moderate drinkers.

But while surmising that the cow may have come to a place of honour from early and poetical a.s.sociation with myths of sun and cloud, it is possible to regard her dignity from a merely human and reasonable standpoint. Menu or other early law-givers may have proclaimed her sanct.i.ty as a means for her protection and preservation among a people careless of the future and p.r.o.ne to live on their capital. And with the same wise intention, the setting free as consecrated gifts of cattle sires (to be noticed hereafter), may have been ordained. At all events, these ordinances, in the absence of any scientific knowledge of breeding, have availed to preserve the cow. Nor is it unlikely that they rescued her from extinction, for it is clear that beef was a popular food when some of the ancient Vedas were written. It would not be hard to show that the same Aryan appreciation of roast beef has served in the West to develop and improve cattle breeding, but you will not easily persuade the modern Hindu of this fact. The establishment of an aristocracy of Brahmans was another stroke of practical wisdom; but the days when a cla.s.s can be maintained aloft by formal prescription merely, seem to be pa.s.sing away all the world over.

It is not easy to select instances that shall make clear to foreign readers the Hindu reverence for the cow and the place that her protection from death holds as a sacramental ordinance. In Indian history the slaughter of cows by impious and impure persons has often been the beginning of battle, murder, and sudden death. The chronicles of every State are full of retaliations for cow-murder, and in every local riot Hindu vengeance is first wreaked on the Muhammadan beef-butcher. Respect for the cow and loathing for the pig are the alpha and omega of the faith of thousands of Hindus and Moslems of the lower orders. In purely Hindu States and in Kashmir, where a Muhammadan population is ruled by a few Hindus, the punishment officially awarded for killing a cow is death, and there are cases on record where whole families have suffered death on suspicion of the offence. The fat of the cow was said to be used in making a newly-introduced cartridge, and so became an excuse for the Sepoy mutiny.

The cry most frequently raised by the Sikhs against the English in the days before the annexation of the Punjab was that they defiled the country by the slaughter of kine. And it was probably this cry that most availed to raise the armies of the Punjab against us, for the Sikhs, like other reformed Hindus, have jealously preserved the cow as an object of reverence. One of the customary phrases used when pleading for mercy from a creditor or a person in power is, "You are a Brahman, I am a cow." That is to say, extend to me the same kind treatment that a cow receives.

In ordinary domestic life a Hindu who has accidentally killed a cow voluntarily undergoes a painful penance. He is at once put out of caste and must repair to the Ganges, no matter how long and toilsome the journey may be. He must carry the cow's tail aloft at the end of a long staff, crying aloud when approached so that all may avoid him as pollution incarnate. He may not enter a village, but food is brought out to him when he halts on his march. Arrived at the sacred river, he must pay fees, which he can frequently but ill afford, to Brahmans for purifying rites, and he must eat and drink the five sacrificial products of the cow, which are not milk and b.u.t.ter merely, and do not include beef.

But it is no crime to allow a barren and useless cow to die, nor is it wrong to starve a male calf to death. And cow-murder, in spite of all ordinances, is one of the commonest offences of rustic life. The leather-dressers are a low caste of Hindus whose business is to skin the bodies of dead animals, which skins are their rightful perquisite. Leather is yearly increasing in value, and this low caste seems likely to rise. One speaks of low-caste people in deference to common usage, but Western readers will, I trust, be slow to believe that whole races of mankind are to be condemned to perpetual degradation because of their trade, or the official position it occupied in the once admirable Indian scheme. Among these so-called low castes there is often a complete organisation, a priesthood and in some sort an aristocracy; and their caste disputes are just as intricate and jealous of points of honour as those of the "twice born" folk. Nor is there any need to disguise the fact that the gift of freedom bestowed for the first time on India by the British Government includes the gradual alleviation of the disabilities of low degree, under which so many of the people have lain for ages. The change is coming about without shock to the general system, and is one of the inevitable results of education and life under free inst.i.tutions. Some of the best artists and craftsmen in India are of low caste, and there are those who resent their rise in life, but it is coming as surely as to-morrow's dawn.

The leather-dressers, then, who take the skins of animals which divide the hoof, consider themselves superior to those who skin horses and camels.

They are a most useful and laborious cla.s.s; and, with education, will make valuable citizens in time, but they have been known to hasten Nature's course by poisoning the cattle of the villagers among whom they live. With curious casuistry they persuaded themselves that it was not cow-murder to insert a skilfully poisoned thorn under the skin of an animal to cause a lingering death, nor to drop poisoned food within its reach, for they also were Hindus and could not kill a cow outright. These are not exceptional practices, for in one prison at one time fifteen hundred leather-dressers have been confined for cattle poisoning. Hindu villagers have been known to make "transactions" with their dangerous neighbours. When the cattle were mysteriously dying (though the cause was no mystery), they summoned a council and asked the leather-dressers for their opinion on the mortality.

The leather-dressers gravely replied that the village G.o.dlings, especially those of their own peculiar caste, had been neglected, and that it would be well to propitiate them. So a feast was made to the leather-dressers, and their G.o.dlings were propitiated by offerings; both sides going through an elaborate semi-religious farce with perfect gravity. Then the deaths would cease for a time. There is a cla.s.s of English medical officers known as Chemical Examiners to Government, whose researches have largely contributed to the detection and conviction of the cattle poisoners who for centuries have taken a heavy toll on the beast life of the land. Many of the tricks they have exposed must have been well known to the people, but even those who had suffered most were reluctant to tell all they knew. A curious sign of the changing time is the fact that Hindus of good caste, seeing the profit that may be made from leather, are quietly creeping into a business from which they are levitically barred. Money prevails against caste more potently than missionary preaching.

The elaborate d.a.m.nations ordained by Brahmanical authority for cow-killing will appear monstrous to a future generation of Hindus. Europeans smile no less at their a.s.sumption of knowledge of the future than at their grotesque acc.u.mulation of horrors and their amazing arrogance, but they are still real and awful to the uneducated Hindu, in spite of his ingrained distrust of Brahmans. One of the characteristic contrasts of native life is the contempt expressed in popular sayings for priestly authority, and the actual respect it receives. Cows are to be given to Brahmans, but they say: "When the cow goes dry or barren she is good enough for the Brahman,"

or "a one-eyed cow is a Brahman's gift." A black cow is thought to be the most acceptable, but the Brahman of to-day cannot afford to be particular.

Of the idle wandering jogi, on the other hand, it is said "even the care of a cow is a bother to him."

The bull receives high honours as the vahan or steed of s.h.i.+va, and as such is known as _Nandi_, the happy one. This name belongs also to the carven stone bull which sits in state before the temples of Mahadeo or Siva, while the small brazen bull forming part of an arrangement for the l.u.s.tration of a domestic s.h.i.+v or phallic emblem is known as _Nandigan_. Hindu devotees who lead about bulls marked with Sivite emblems and supposed to be consecrated to Mahadeo are called Anandis. In ordinary life the respect for the bull finds quaint expression at times. A friend of mine was the owner of a fine sire of a choice breed, which he sent to fairs and cattle shows, where frequently some devout old woman would hang a garland of marigolds round its neck and go through the familiar actions of wors.h.i.+p.

The ancient Hindu practice of releasing a bull has been referred to. This is still done on recovery from sickness, or as a propitiation, and is called a _pun_ or dedicatory offering. The orthodox practice is to present at the same time a heifer to the chief or Maha-Brahman. But it is said that this part of the ceremony is frequently omitted, so that year by year the Brahman's dues fall off. _Pun_ bulls have been useful as sires, but as the population increases and grazing areas contract, they are a doubtful blessing. In our Law Courts the question has been tried whether an animal set free to stray at will is an article of property. At first sight there would seem to be no great harm in yoking the beast to cart or plough. But while Hindus acknowledge that such bulls may be a public nuisance and rather approve than otherwise of an English District Officer who is reported to have harnessed the dust-carts of a large munic.i.p.ality with semi-sacred strays, it is quite another matter when a Muhammadan or a man of low caste seizes a _pun_ bull. The decisions of the courts were contradictory. In one it was affirmed that the beast belonged to n.o.body, and might be appropriated to use, and in another that he was already property and not to be interfered with. Nor is it only as a bone of contention that cattle enter Law Courts, for a very binding form of oath is sworn by pouring Ganges water on a cow's tail.

One of the most popular of the pictures sold at fairs is a composition known as _Dharmraj_, a name of _Yama_, the Hindu Pluto, and also used broadly for Justice. The Judge is enthroned and demon executioners bring the dead to receive their doom. The river of death flows on one side of the picture and those go safely across who hold a cow by the tail, while others are torn by terrible fishes. Chitrgupt, the clerk or recording angel of Yama, considered to be the ancestor of the _Kayasth_ or clerkly caste, sits in an office with account books exactly like those of a Hindu tradesman, and according to the record of each soul, punishments or rewards are given.

For, as a popular native saying has it,--"G.o.d looks out of the window of heaven and keeps account." _Duts_ or executioners torture offenders, while the blest sail upwards in air-borne chariots.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KRISHNA ADORED BY THE GOPIS (FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE)]

The comparatively modern G.o.d Krishna is at the bottom of the popular liking for cows. Here it may be again observed that the official mythology of the books known to Europeans gives but a faint idea of the actual estimates of the Hindu G.o.ds in the minds of the people. Krishna is a divinity, but he is much more. He is a man with a history, which is embroidered upon with all that is most congenial to the Hindu imagination. The pranks of his youth, when he teased and bewitched the Gopis or celestial milkwomen, stole their b.u.t.ter, entangled them in delirious dances, hid their clothes when they bathed in the river, and the like, are told in stories, acted in plays, and sung everywhere. A small bra.s.s figure of the baby Krishna crawling on hands and knees with an uplifted hand holding a pat of b.u.t.ter is known as the "b.u.t.ter-thief," and is to be found in most Hindu houses. Every Hindu mother,--and no mothers are more tender and affectionate,--sees a beautiful and half divine Krishna in her baby boy and wors.h.i.+ps him with a devotion unbroken by the variety of interests, amus.e.m.e.nts, and occupations which distract the mind of her Western sister.

It must be confessed that to a fresh occidental mind there is nothing so tiresome as a book of Hindu mythology. So it is unfortunate that books like the _Prem Sagur_ and other mythological stories are given as Hindi lesson books to subalterns and others who wish to pa.s.s examinations in the vernacular. An undiluted course of the cla.s.sic mythology of Europe, shorn of all the allusions, historical elucidations, and modern interpretations which give it life would probably be almost as unattractive. The British schoolboy has harboured some hard thoughts about Apollo and Jupiter, but they are nothing to the distaste which many Anglo-Indians conceive for Krishna and the rest, who appear as merely monstrous creations of a disordered and sensuous fantasy. Seen on the nearer horizon of native life, Krishna is one of the most human of the manifold forms set up by mankind for adoration; being a typical young Hindu, full of the popular conception of life, love, and beauty. It could not well be otherwise, for the G.o.d you make must be in some sort the man you are or would like to be.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KRISHNA DRIVES THE CATTLE HOME (FROM AN INDIAN PICTURE)]

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. Sanct.i.ty 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 Ramayana on those who approve of the exile of Rama is,--"may he touch a cow with his feet!"--and so incur the deepest Brahmanical d.a.m.nation. 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 _dumba_ 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 pa.s.sion for cla.s.sifying 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 appet.i.tes 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 _rath_ 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUNJAB BAILI (SPRINGLESS OX-CART)]

The richer pastures and cold winters of Kashmir and the hill country near develop a st.u.r.dy, square-headed, short-legged race with a coa.r.s.e coat like that of the English cow. In the Himalaya, where the gra.s.s is deficient in nouris.h.i.+ng 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPARATIVE SIZES OF THE LARGEST AND SMALLEST BREEDS OF INDIAN OXEN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOMBAY REKLA]

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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 points of cows and oxen, their varieties of horn, breed, shape, and character are expressed in a mult.i.tude 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 inept.i.tude 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 d.y.k.es 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-wors.h.i.+p. 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 nouris.h.i.+ng 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.

[Footnote 2: Mr. B. Malabari mentions having heard this benediction p.r.o.nounced in Durbar over the present Gaekwar of Baroda.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COW AND CALF]

There is propriety and sense in the sort of reverence that the poor of most countries pay to G.o.d's gifts of food. Milk has a large share of this wholesome elemental respect in India. "When a cow or buffalo is first bought," writes Mr. Denzil Ibbetson, "or when she first gives milk after calving, the first five streams are allowed to fall on the ground in honour of the Earth-mother, or G.o.ddess,"--a widely wors.h.i.+pped deity,--"and at every time of milking the first stream is so treated." The last is a custom, however, as much honoured in the breach as in the observance.

Hindus of the old school complain of the decay under our educational system of pious household ritual and beliefs. Among these is a rustic observance of bread breaking. The first piece is for the cow, the second for the dog, and the third for the crow. The cow's piece must not be bitten or mangled, but the dog and the crow are expected to take what they can get with grat.i.tude. Regret for the old order as it changes is natural enough, but with the harmless and the good some evil is also pa.s.sing away; for G.o.d fulfils himself in many ways.

Ghi, which is b.u.t.ter boiled to make it keep, is no less esteemed than milk, and stands figuratively as it serves in fact, for richness and well-being.