Gents Mag 1899 part 2 p.549
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list, 4th qtr 19th century | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1899 part 2 p.549
list, itself with delight and excitement - clearly some sheep were buried here. In a short half-hour a force of diggers had collected, and the necessary shafts rapidly made, but not for four hours of stern hard work did we come against the steep cliff face and find - nought. We had taken a wrong direction. Old Sam (the dog) was brought down to indicate anew the whereabouts of our quest, and after digging some yards to our left we encountered one of those hardened blocks which we knew contained a sheep. After being entombed for almost forty days the poor creature was in a deplorable state. Its stommach seemed to have shrunk almost entirely away, its eyes were glazed and sightless, its whole body limp and powerless. The mouth opened, but so low had ebbed the stream of vigour that no sound issued. The sheep was barely alive. A little gin was at once administered to rouse the digestive organs so that nutrition might be given freely, after which blankets were brought up from the house. Wrapped in these the sheep - a very light burden indeed - was transported to the warm kitchen, where it was fully brought round. The dogs gave great trouble at this point, and we were told that the quietest of them would not hesitate to worry and kill any sheep it found in so emaciated a condition. It has been remarked that sheep-worrying is always most rife during the early spring after such a mishap as an early winter storm. Digging again, more dead than alive, another two were reached together. Though so closely imprisoned in the snow, one of them had been able to reach its companion, and had torn and eaten the wool from its qtrs. The surgical skill at command could not remove the wool clogging its vitals, and a few hours after the rescue the sheep had to be killed. The last gallery cut in the snow enables us to reach a sheep which had squeezed itself during the storm close to the cliff. The moss, so far as it could reach, had been devoured, the soil had been sucked from the crevices of the rock, and the bare stone had been polished by much licking. The sheep was the best in condition of those rescued that day." Sheep which have been buried in the snow for such lengths of time are very slow to recover from the effects, and few of them are sent again to graze on the fell. They are fattened at all hazards and sold to the butcher. When it is observed that the average mountain sheep-farm has twelves acres of land on the tops to one in the bottom, it will be apparent that the sheep turned off the grass in autumn would over-stock the other land if a large number of the lambs or "hogs" were not wintered at other places than on their owner's farm. On the |
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