walks himself down to his doom. Granted that prices are low,
still it is obvious that there must be huge profits in the business.
So the cattle start away out to "the country", where they are supposed
to increase and multiply, and enrich their owners. Alas! for such hopes.
There is a curse on cattle.

No one has ever been able to explain exactly how the deficit arises.
Put the figures before the oldest and most experienced cattleman,
and he will fail to show why they don't work out right.
And yet they never do. It is not the fault of the cattle themselves.
Sheep would rather die than live -- and when one comes to think of
the life they lead, one can easily understand their preference for death;
but cattle, if given half a chance, will do their best to prolong
their existence.

If they are running on low-lying country and are driven off
when a flood comes, they will probably walk back into the flood-water
and get drowned as soon as their owner turns his back. But, as a rule,
cattle are not suicidal. They sort themselves into mobs,
they pick out the best bits of country, they find their way to the water,
they breed habitually; but it always ends in the same way.
The hand of Fate is against them.

If a drought comes, they eat off the grass near the water
and have to travel far out for a feed. Then they fall away and get weak,
and when they come down to drink they get bogged in the muddy waterholes
and die there.

Or Providence sends the pleuro, and big strong beasts slink away
by themselves, and stand under trees glaring savagely till death comes.