1 82 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
potamia from the earliest historical times, and very 
probably survived till the Assyrian era." 
That these were wild, and not tame, buffaloes, is 
rendered practically certain, in the opinion of the same 
author, from the fact that the kings and heroes with 
whose portraits they are associated are represented 
as fighting or hunting lions and other wild beasts; 
and, secondly, that their horns differ from those of 
the modern tame buffaloes of Syria. 
That these wild Mesopotamian buffaloes were con- 
fined to Asia, and did not extend into Egypt, seems 
to be rendered certain by the fact that these animals 
are not represented in the more ancient frescoes, and 
that the modern tame breed was introduced at a 
later date from Asia. Whether buffaloes existed in 
Egypt in the prehistoric epoch — as they certainly did 
in Europe — is, however, another question. 
It is also doubtful whether the tame buffaloes 
which now abound in Palestine and other parts of 
Asia Minor are the direct descendants of the ancient 
wild buffaloes of the Euphrates and Tigris valleys, or 
whether they were a later import from the more 
eastern countries of Asia. Canon Tristram ^ stated, 
indeed, that " there seems reason to believe that they 
were not introduced till after the Khalifs overran 
Persia and brought them back," but he was un- 
acquainted with the evidence in favour of the exist- 
ence of the species in Mesopotamia during the epoch 
of the Babylonian monarchy. Still there does not 
appear to be any animal mentioned in the Bible 
which can be definitely identified with the buffalo. 
At the present day buffaloes are met with in a 
more or less completely domesticated state through- 
^ Natural History of the Bible ^ London, 1867, p. 58. 
