Austria: containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that EmpireShoberl, Frederic
History
Austria: containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that Empire
Shoberl, Frederic
Austria -- Social life and customs
Bredetzky, a Hungarian writer, observes that Buffaloes are extremely
valuable for their skins, which are employed at Rhonasech in forming
the bags in which salt is raised from the mines. He also speaks of
their ferocity and the difficulty of killing them in terms which would
almost lead us to suppose them to be in a state of nature in that part
of the country. The operation of shooting the Buffalo, says he, is
curious but extremely dangerous, for in no other way can they be
secured on account of their wildness. It is not possible to kill them
with an axe like other cattle. They are first driven with great care
from the inclosure in which they have been kept, and a shot is
levelled by a person concealed exactly at the forehead. If he misses
his aim, the animal with the most tremendous fury darts away so
swiftly that dogs can scarcely overtake him, and any one who stands in
his way is inevitably killed.
The original breed of Hungarian sheep is the real _Ovis Strepsiceros_
of naturalists, covered with very coarse wool and bearing upright
spiral horns. Improvement on this stock by crosses with other
varieties, and the Spanish in particular, is become so general, that a
flock of the native race is seldom to be met with, excepting on the
estates of the clergy. The wool is now an important object of
commerce. It was calculated that in 1802, above twelve million and a
half pounds (each pound being equal to one pound and a quarter of our
weight) was exported from Hungary. A large portion goes to Austria,
and is manufactured there or sent to more distant markets; and much of
the wool sold in England as Saxon wool, is actually the produce of
Hungary, exported in spite of the heavy duty which it pays on leaving
the Austrian dominions.
Some idea of the extraordinary care bestowed by the great landed
proprietors on the improvement of their flocks may be formed from the
following brief sketch of the system pursued by Count Hunyadi, who
possesses about seventeen thousand sheep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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