on the
chiefs and head-men complete.

The cows are worked equally with the oxen; and as the calves are always
permitted to suck them, milk is an article which the traveller can
rarely hope to procure in a Kandyan village. From their constant
exposure at all seasons, the cattle in Ceylon, both those employed in
agriculture and on the roads, are subject to the most devastating
murrains, which sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the
recurrence of these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they
exercise a serious influence over 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 season.

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 him into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for
help, she continued to pound him with her horns. The wild animal,
apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her
till despatched by a gun.

_The Buffalo_.--Buffaloes abound in all parts of Ceylon, but they are
only to be seen in their native wildness in the vast solitudes of the
northern and eastern provinces, where rivers, lagoons, and dilapidated
tanks abound. In these they delight to immerse themselves, till only
their heads appear above the surface; or, enveloped in mud to protect
themselves from the assaults of insects, luxuriate in the long sedges by
the water margins.

When the buffalo is browsing, a crow will