CHAPTER XIV. 



THE BUFFALO. 



BUT the wildest scenes to be witnessed on this hemisphere 

 are those connected with buffalo-hunting on the great plains. 

 This huge and shaggy brute affords a strong contrast in size 

 with the fierce and bristling little peccary, though in many 

 respects the formidable character of the two may be traced 

 to a single and similar cause. The " downward eye," 

 common to them, is this cause. Neither of them, from 

 the stiff and peculiar structure of the neck and placing of 

 the eye-balls, can, without an effort, see beyond the direct 

 plane of vision presented to the habitual carriage of the 

 head. 



Whatever is thus exhibited to the peccary that has motion, 

 if it be merely the legs of an animal, it charges upon, as 

 we have seen ; while the buffalo, which is less spontaneously 

 pugnacious, may regard the same as an object of stupid 

 suspicion, or of headlong, blundering terror. The buffalo 

 must be wounded to turn upon the pursuer, and then the 

 charge of the goaded and 'frantic monster, being always in 

 a straight line, is disarmed of half its dangerous character, 

 as the hunter is thus readily enabled to elude the effects 

 by a quick side motion. 



The eye of the horse being more prominently placed, it 

 is enabled soon to acquire this facility of advantage; and 

 it is most surprising with what wary confidence the trained 

 Bteed* of a Black-feet, Sioux, or a Comanche will dash in 

 and through an interminable herd of these prodigious beasts, 



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