It is only in India and Peru that the sheep is used as a beast of burden. Borax, asafœtida, and other commodities are brought in bags on the backs of sheep driven in large flocks from Thibet into British territory. Only the picturesque shepherds return from these journeys; for the carriers of the caravan, feeding as they go, gather flesh in spite of their burdens, and provide most excellent mutton.
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 Mohammedan. "buck," going out for a stroll with his fighting ram, makes a picture of point-device foppery not easily surpassed 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 colors procurable; his vest is of scarlet or sky-blue satin, embroidered with color and gold; his slender legs are incased 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 shining with scented hair-oil, is sleeked behind his ears, where it has a drake's-tail curl which throws in relief his gold ear-rings; and, in addition to two or three
Fig. 4.—Comparative Sizes of the Largest and Smallest Breeds of Indian Oxen.
necklaces, he usually wears a gold chain. Patent-leather shoes and a cane complete the costume. As he first affronts the sunshine, 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.
