THE WANDERINGS OF THE .WATER BUFFALO. 8 



The Indian government has recently formed dairy farms to supply 

 milk and butter for the use of the troops. The fine breeds of Indian 

 cattle are used in these dairies, but cow buffaloes are also kept on 

 account of the richness of their milk. Europeans sometimes object 

 to use it, as the domesticated buffalo is often kept as a sort of scaven- 

 ger to the cow byres of the Indian cities, and eats the litter and refuse 

 of the farmyards. But properl}' fed the buffalo is by no means the 

 bovine pig which it becomes when kept in Hyderabad or Benares. It 

 is not only a first-class dairy animal, but the strongest beast of draft 

 in the world except the elephant. Great areas of rich river delta and 

 marsh in three continents are maintained in cultivation by buffaloes 

 when no other animal could possibly be used to plow the rice fields or 

 drag carts over and through miles of liquid mud. The value of this. 

 probably the latest of all large animals to be domesticated, is so well 

 known in the East that it has for centuries past been carried to places 

 so remote from its original home and apparently so inaccessible that 

 the extent of its involuntary migrations in the service of man has a 

 peculiar interest. Besides this it is one of the very few domesticated 

 animals which, like the } T ak and the gayal (possibly a tame form of the 

 gaur), are still found in their original wild state, with form and habits 

 scarcely altered. The wild buffalo is among the most dangerous and 

 formidable of the big game of India, never hesitating to charge when 

 wounded, and noted for the persistency with which it seeks to destroy 

 the person who has injured it. Its natural home is in the grass jungles 

 and swamps of India, Nepaul, and Assam. It is also found wild in 

 the island of Formosa. It is a huge black beast, with no hair, a skin 

 like black gutta-percha, immense horns, sometimes measuring more 

 than 1'2 feet along the curve, though not spreading like a shield over 

 the forehead as in the Cape buffalo, but set like a pair of scythes on 

 each side of its head. A bull stands 6 feet high at the shoulder — 

 eighteen hands, that is; its bulk is enormous, and its great spreading 

 feet are well adapted for walking in the swamps. By choice it is semi- 

 aquatic. A herd will lie for hours in a pool or river with just their 

 eyes, horns, and great snub noses above water. Anyone who blunders 



"Reprinted from The Spectator, August 31, 1901, pp. 278-279. 



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