Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/387

 it being imagined he could never take the goats five hundred miles up the country. "I am so lame I shall never overdrive them," said the man;—the reason was unanswerable, he was taken into service.

The old male goat of the flock very often upsets the shepherd; though they are always at war they are great friends.

Poor old Bulwan, our lame shepherd, was bitten by a mad dog, which attacked him when he was driving it off from one of the goats—my favourite black Bengalī, which I had commended to his especial care; he died four days afterwards: he was sent to the hospital, but it was too late. There seems to be no cure but that of cutting out the bitten part, and cauterizing the wound. We gave his son eight rupees to bury him, and shall keep him in his father's place if he is steady. We regret the old man very much; we used to give him a rupee occasionally to cheer him. Every shepherd knows his own sheep;—and my old man not only knew his own sheep, but had a name for each of his goats, forty-five in number. Like Dandy Dinmont's terriers, Pepper and Mustard, and Mustard and Pepper, the old man derived the name of all his goats from one, his prime favourite, a beautifully spotted Delhi goat, by name Jūmnī,—"Jūmnī's daughter," "Jūmnī's grandson's grand-daughter's son," "Jūmnī's nephew's grandchild,"—every kid in the flock was traced by some means or other to the invaluable Jūmnī: the pedigree of a race-horse was nothing in comparison to the pedigree of the kids!