CHAPTER XIV 
THE BUFFALO ( BUBALUS ) 
The genus Bos is the most useful to mankind. 
The bull has been from time immemorial venerated 
as an emblem of procreative power. The winged 
bulls of Nineveh are now stored in that grand 
asylum of the ancient world, the British Museum ; 
and we look back to the earliest history in Egypt, 
where we see the bull-calf Apis sacred, as symbolical 
of strength and procreativeness, that should supply 
mankind with the herds of cattle necessary for their 
existence. 
The veneration for the bull was so firmly 
implanted in the human mind, that we read of the 
first symptoms of antagonism to the teaching of 
Moses, in Exodus, when the Hebrews sought the 
assistance of Aaron to mould them a bull-calf in 
imitation of the Egyptian Apis, directly that their 
leader and deliverer had disappeared for a few days 
to seek the counsel of the Lord upon Mount 
Sinai. 
In the savage regions of Central Africa, where the 
worship of a Deity is unknown, the bull is regarded 
