s,
that sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the recurrence of
these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they exercise a
serious influence upon the commercial interests of the colony, by
reducing the facilities of agriculture, and augmenting the cost of
carriage during the most critical periods of the coffee harvest.

A similar disorder, probably peripneumonia, frequently carries off the
cattle in Assam and other hill countries on the continent of India; and
there, as in Ceylon, the inflammatory symptoms in the lungs and throat,
and the internal derangement and external eruptive appearances, seem to
indicate that the disease is a feverish influenza, attributable to
neglect and exposure in a moist and variable climate; and that its
prevention might be hoped for, and the cattle preserved, by the simple
expedient of more humane and considerate treatment, especially by
affording them cover at night.

During my residence in Ceylon an incident occurred at Neuera-ellia,
which invested one of these pretty animals with an heroic interest. A
little cow, belonging to an English gentleman, was housed, together with
her calf, near the dwelling of her owner, and being aroused during the
night by her furious bellowing, the servants, on hastening to the stall,
found her goring a leopard, which had stolen in to attack the calf. She
had got it into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for
help, she continued to pound it with her horns. The wild animal,
apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her
till despatched by a bullet.

The number of bullock-carts encountered between Colombo and Kandy, laden
with coffee from the interior, or carrying up rice and stores for the
supply of the plantations in the hill-country, is quite surprising. The
oxen thus employed on this single road, about seventy miles long, are
estimated at upwards of twenty thousand. The bandy to which they are
yoked is a barbarous two-wheeled waggon, with a covering of plaited
coco-nut leaves, in which a pair of strong bullocks will draw from five
to ten hundred weight, according to the nature of the country; and with
this load on a level they will perform a journey of twenty miles a day.

A few of the large humped cattle of India are annually imported for
draught; but the vast majority of those in use are small and
dark-coloured, with a graceful head and neck, and elevated hump, a deep
silky dewlap, and limbs as sle