3-011-985 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Embarking cattle at the port of Tamatave, Madagascar, 1864. Engraving from a sketch by Lieutenant S. P. Oliver showing '...the mode of putting cattle on shipboard in a port of Madagascar, which does a considerable trade in live beef...The ox is there commonly represented by the variety called "zebu", or the Indian ox (bos Indicus)...The vessel having approached the shore as near as is practicable, a hawser is passed ashore. A large canoe is prepared, with pieces of timber lashed across the outriggers (sometimes they have two canoes lashed together), and this lies just outside the rollers, or breakers, on the beach...It is very amusing to see the cattle driven into the sea. They are first caught with a noose thrown around their horns whilst yet in the pen; ropes are made fast to the head of the first comer, and the gate of the cattle-pen being opened, he rushes out...The bullocks and oxen are driven into the surf and made to swim to the canoe, where their horns are lashed to the outrigger; and as soon as the canoe has a number of them fast lashed and swimming alongside, she is hauled along the hawser and brought alongside the vessel, where the oxen are slung and hauled on board'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.