galton.org 51
Gregarious and Slavish Instincts
51
tolerably comfortable manner. They are essentially slavish, and seek no
better lot than to be led by any one of their number who has enough self-
reliance to accept that position. No ox ever dares to act contrary to the rest
of the herd, but he accepts their common determination as an authority
binding on his conscience.
An incapacity of relying on oneself and a faith in others are precisely
the conditions that compel brutes to congregate and live in herds; and,
again, it is essential to their safety in a country infested by large carnivora,
that they should keep closely together in herds. No ox grazing alone could
live for many days unless he were protected, far more assiduously and
closely than is possible to barbarians. The Damara owners confide
perhaps 200 cattle to a couple of half-starved youths, who pass their time
in dozing or in grubbing up roots to eat. The owners know that it is
hopeless to protect the herd from lions, so they leave it to take its chance;
and as regards human marauders they equally know that the largest
number of cattle watchers they could spare could make no adequate
resistance to an attack; they therefore do not send more than two, who are
enough to run home and give the alarm to the whole male population of
the tribe to run in arms on the tracks of their plundered property.
Consequently, as I began by saying, the cattle have to take care of
themselves against the wild beasts, and they would infallibly be destroyed
by them if they had not safeguards of their own, which are not easily to be
appreciated at first sight at their full value. We shall understand them
better by considering the precise nature of the danger that an ox runs.
When he is alone it is not simply that he is too defenceless, but that lie is
easily surprised. A crouching lion fears cattle who turn boldly upon him,
and he does so with reason. The horns of an ox or antelope are able to
make an ugly wound in the paw or chest of a springing beast when he
receives its thrust in the same way that an meets his adversary’s
“counter” hit.
Hence it is that a cow who has calved by the wayside, and has been
temporarily abandoned by the caravan, is never seized by lions. The
incident frequently occurs, and as frequently are the cow and calf
eventually brought safe to
