BUFFALO 
191 
were reminiscent of “Smithfield” (a spot I have never 
seen). 
Born and bred in primal security, unconscious of care or 
of cordite, these happier herds probably spent their whole 
lives within a radius of a league or two. Nevertheless it 
remains to remark that even these unharassed buffaloes, 
although secure in pristine fastnesses, still prefer to feed 
by night; and that by day-—though scorning protection of 
Horns of Two Old Buffalo-Bulls, Showing Divergent Types. 
(Shot right-and-left from same Herd, on White Nile.) 
thicket or jungle—they continue alert to the last degree ; 
as keen in all the senses of sight, sound, and scent as any 
wild beast I have ever pursued. 1 
1 These last paragraphs are obviously at variance with my own previous 
remarks on the habits of much-hunted buffaloes as observed elsewhere—• 
as, for example, not only in other parts of Sudan but in British East Africa. 
In the latter, as related in On Safari (p. 186), the great bo vines seek out 
the densest and most impenetrable thorn-thickets, or—as at Lake Baringo 
—oceans of “elephant-grass” equally impassable to man, for their diurnal 
refuge. In light of these memories, it amazed me to find buffalo here in 
an odd corner of Sudan lying-up in open forest, and even choosing bare 
spots at that! It is solely a question of local conditions and of the degree 
of persecution to which they may have been subjected. 
