CHAPTER LIV.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WILD CATTLE IN POLYNESIA BEFORE we proceed further, a word or two concerning these wild cattle, and the way they came on the island.
Some fifty years ago, Vancouver left several bullocks, sheep and goats, at various places in the Society group.

He instructed the natives to look after the animals carefully; and by no means to slaughter any until a considerable stock had accumulated.
The sheep must have died off: for I never saw a solitary fleece in any part of Polynesia.

The pair left were an ill-assorted couple, perhaps; separated in disgust, and died without issue.
As for the goats, occasionally you come across a black, misanthropic ram, nibbling the scant herbage of some height inaccessible to man, in preference to the sweet grasses of the valley below.

The goats are not very numerous.
The bullocks, coming of a prolific ancestry, are a hearty set, racing over the island of Imeeo in considerable numbers, though in Tahiti but few of them are seen.

At the former place, the original pair must have scampered off to the interior since it is now so thickly populated by their wild progeny.