Cows rarely run anywhere (unless stampeding); they generally prefer a short stroll from one tasty tuft of grass to another. However, according to a French Jesuit historian (an ‘expert’ on China), they have cows in that country which can run 300 miles in a day – more than enough to get the mail from London to Leeds!
“A correspondent observes, that Mr. Palmer’s scheme for conveying the mails from London to Leeds in 26 hours, has some degree of cruelty in it towards the poor horses. He wishes to find some method of easing these useful and industrious animals of their burden. And as in the course of his reading he has found, in Duhald’s* History of China, page 233, a description of a cow, which can run 300 miles in a day; – he submits it to Mr. Palmer and to government whether it would not be [possi]ble to import a number of these cows upon the present [o]ccasion to relieve the most useful and noble animal of the creation.”
The Stamford Mercury, 26th August, 1785.
*Jean-Baptiste Du Halde