Chapter 177 Grazing
After dinner, Hornfels stretched and began to pack his equipment, while Maria cleaned up the dishes.
Hornfels squatted in front of the bed, tied the laces of his riding boots, took out a wooden box from under the bed, opened the lid, and found a musket with good butter inside. He checked the condition of the gun.
He put on his coat, tightened his belt, checked the amount of ammunition and put it in his pocket.
Then he wrapped the gun with a cloth belt, put it on his back, walked to the wall, and took the straw hat off the wall.
"The water bag has been filled, and I have put dry food and raincoat in the bag." Maria handed over a brown leather bag.
Hornfels kissed Maria on the forehead and said, "My dear, I'm leaving."
Maria snuggled in Hornfels's arms and said, "I'll prepare dinner. Be careful when you go out, and don't be too anxious when riding."
"Got it. I'll be careful," Hornfels promised.
The two men walked out of the house together. Hornfirth came to the stable, untied the whip from the wooden stake, held it in his hand, fixed the saddle, stepped on the stirrup and jumped onto the horse's back.
"Wait for me to come back!" Hornfels said to his wife, then rode his horse to meet his colleagues.
There are not many people in the village where Hornfels lives, only a dozen households, and soon all the villagers gathered together.
Village chief Karl counted the number of people and after confirming that they were all right, he said, "Go to the cowshed and drive all the cows out."
The cattle pen was built next to the village. It was quite large and housed more than 300 cattle in total.
Hornfels and his colleagues opened the cowshed and drove the cattle out. More than a dozen people drove the cattle towards the pasture.
"drive."
…
East Africa is a large natural pasture. Hornfels and his team drove the cattle to a place with abundant grass and water, and then began to graze.
The cattle in northern Kenya are not the ones that Ernst imported from the Netherlands, but domestic cattle native to Africa, which are mainly used as livestock for draught and future food. The Dutch dairy cows are all raised in the upper coastal area. After all, they are relatively delicate, so it is better to be careful with them.
These cattle native to East Africa were naturally taken from the natives and then concentrated by the East African colonies on the pastures in Kenya for breeding.
There are few domesticated animals in Africa, but there are some. For example, domestic donkeys are said to be domesticated from two subspecies of African wild donkeys in East Africa, the Nubian donkey and the Somali donkey. These wild donkeys are still alive in Somalia and Ethiopia today. Of course, this is a masterpiece of ancient Egypt and has little to do with the indigenous people south of the Sahara.
The origin of African domestic cattle is somewhat controversial, with three theories. Early archaeological studies believed that African domestic cattle were not domesticated locally, but were spread from Asia and Europe via the Nile River Basin and East Africa (Somali Peninsula).
In the late 20th century, archaeologists began to propose that African domestic cattle were domesticated from native African wild buffalo.
Later, there was a theory that the Western Desert of Egypt was the third origin of cattle domestication. Of course, Ernst tends to believe in the theory of multiple domestications. After all, there are records of cattle domestication in many parts of the world (except America, Australia, and Oceania).
In any case, the existing domestic cattle in East Africa are now the spoils of East African colonization.
In addition to African domestic cattle, there is also a group of African zebu cattle in the East African colonies. They were mainly brought to the East African region from the Indian Peninsula by Arab and Indian merchants in the Middle Ages. They are distributed in many places in East Africa and Central Africa.
Currently in East Africa, the two species are mixed and grazed in the grasslands of northern Kenya.
In the whole northern part of Kenya, the number of cattle currently registered in the East African colony is about 130,000. There are also many cattle raised in other areas of the East African colony, but the scale is not as large as in northern Kenya, and they are mainly used as animal power.
Hornfels rode on his horse and looked around. Although the East African colony had carried out extermination activities on large wild animals in northern Kenya many times, there were inevitably some that slipped through the net.
Therefore, cattle herders like Hornfels are armed when herding to deal with emergencies.
Before the development of East African colonies, the number of cattle in East Africa was much larger than it is today, but the number of cattle looted from East Africa itself was not large. For example, large cattle breeders such as the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the Kingdom of Buganda were simply driven away by East Africa, and most of the cattle, as important assets, were taken away when they fled.
These domestic cattle in the East African colonies mainly came from nomadic peoples on the East African grasslands, such as the Maasai. After their assets were robbed, some were turned into slaves by East Africa, and some were expelled westward by East Africa.
In addition to domestic cattle, East Africa itself has a large number of African wild buffaloes, but wild buffaloes are not welcomed in East Africa. In the early days, they were used as food by East African immigrants. After the development of grain planting, the immigrants' food problem was solved, and the African wild buffaloes suffered the same fate as lions, hyenas and other wild beasts. Most of them were shot in the developed areas in East Africa. Now they are only active in the Serengeti grasslands, the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, Mount Mazaro or other remote mountains and forests.
It was the end of the rainy season and light drizzle began to fall. Hornfels and others put on raincoats. This kind of light rain season is when the grass and water are lush and suitable for grazing, so raincoats are essential items.
Generally speaking, herding life is rather boring, but also relatively leisurely, especially in fixed areas like East Africa. Cattle herders do not need to travel around like cowboys in the American West, because East Africa does not have a consumer market as large as that of the United States.
At the same time, the current cattle herd in East Africa is not large, and exports have not had much effect. In recent years, the main focus has been on breeding cattle.
After an unknown amount of time, the drizzle stopped and it was almost noon. Carl asked everyone to sit together and have lunch.
"Oh, I really want time to pass quickly. Every day when I eat pancakes, I miss home the most. Village chief, aren't you from the Far East? Tell us the story of your hometown!" said Schubert, a young man from Bavaria.
That’s right, the village chief Karl is a Chinese. Although his name sounds completely European, it was actually given in Europe. He was an early student of the Hechingen Military Academy. Later, because of his poor spoken English, he was sent to an internship in a company in Berlin, and gradually he learned a pure Berlin accent.
Carl seemed to recall the days in the Far East and said, "Speaking of my hometown! The climate there is very similar to East Africa, but the living conditions are similar to those in Europe. There are also endless wheat fields and every village has a lot of people.
But the houses in our village are very different from those in Europe, and the roads are similar to those in East Africa. Before coming to Europe, I had hardly ever seen a city. I grew up in a village, and only saw what a city looked like once before I was taken to Europe. On the day I first went to sea, the leader told us that the port city was called Jiaozhou, a big city in the Far East, and that’s where I went to Europe…”
"Village chief, don't talk about Europe! We are mainly interested in the Far East. I heard that my wife is from your place, so I would like to hear more about the Far East from you." Schubert said.
"The Far East is very big, and I don't know if your wife and I are from the same place. Later, when I saw the world map in Hechingen, I found that our place is almost as big as the whole of Europe. The languages in many places may be different. Many of my classmates came from the same place as me, but I couldn't understand many people's dialects. I guess the difference is similar to that of German and French. How would I know which province your wife is from? Besides, I didn't go to school in the Far East. I only remember the name of my former village and the place called Jiaozhou that goes out to the sea. I don't know many places in the Far East very well. I just heard some place names when I listened to operas in the village, but I don't know where those places are." Carl said.
Perhaps, in their lifetime, these villagers will never know that their wives and Carl are not from the same country. They only know that their wives are from the East, but where exactly? In this closed era, without learning knowledge and culture, they will never know.
Even Karl only knew what his country looked like through the world map of Hechingen School. Many rural people may never have been to the county town once in their lives and are trapped in the countryside all their lives.
The villagers' wives came from all over Southeast Asia. Like Carl before he went to school, they were ignorant and might not even know where their own country was.
(End of this chapter)
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