Page:Pearl of Asia (Child JT, 1892).pdf/340

Rh such martingales to keep his head up, he is hitched to a plough with a short beam and draws it by means of rope traces passing from a rude whippletree to a wooden yoke fixed on his neck by a rope in place of our ox bow. The yoke is in the form of a crescent with its extremities curving a little outward forming a small knob. To these knobs the traces are tied. You will see the buffalo going along with great apparent carelessness, always holding his head near the ground, snapping up here and there a mouthful of grass, and yet never losing the furrow by which he is to walk. The only trouble seems to be that he will halt a little to get what he wishes to eat. He, as well as the oxen, is guided by reins fastened to his nostrils.

A yoke designed for a pair of oxen is often a simple straight and rounded stick $2 1⁄2$ inches in diameter and $3 1⁄2$ feet long. Some of them are more tasty by having a slight bend downward in their middle with a little enlargement there for an auger hole for the rope of the plough or the tongue of a cart to be attached, a slight curve upward and then downward for the necks of the oxen, ending in a little curve upward. The neck of each ox is confined to its place by means of two straight wooden pins three-quarters of an inch in diameter and a foot long, passing through the yoke in the place of a bow, being less open at the top than at the bottom; and then small cords, passing under the neck tied to the upper ends of the pins, complete all the purposes of an ox-bow.

The two kinds of ploughs are about equally strong, but neither of them strong enough to stand a hard pull from a yoke of ordinary w estern oxen. The one for a buffalo would not usually weigh more than 30 lbs. Its