Very great interest attaches to this animal, if only from the fact that it is evidently a species domesticated directly from the wild stock. It therefore deserves consideration both as a wild and as a domesticated animal. It is found wild in the swampy jungles at the foot of the Himalaya, in the Ganges Delta, and in the jungles of the Central Provinces; also, it is believed, in the jungles of West Assam. Like the African species, it is an animal of great size and strength, with short brown hair, white fetlocks, and immense long, narrow, flattened horns. It is almost aquatic by preference, passing many hours of each day wallowing in the water, or standing in any deep pool with only the tips of its nostrils and its horns out of the water. By general consent it is the most dangerous of Indian animals after the tiger. A buffalo bull when wounded will hunt for its enemy by scent as persistently as a dog hunting for a rabbit. A writer in _Country Life_ lately gave an account of a duel between himself, armed with a small and light rifle, and a buffalo bull, in which the latter hunted him for more than an hour, each time being driven off by a shot from the light rifle, and each time returning to the search, until it was killed. Sir Samuel Baker, when he first went to Ceylon, found the buffaloes practically in possession of the meadows round a lake in the neighbourhood of his quarters, and waged a war of extermination against the bulls, which were very dangerous.
[Illustration: _Photo by the Duchess of Bedford_] [_Woburn Abbey._
Notice the difference in the fore and hind quarters of this animal and the European representative of the same group. (See page 216.)]
The buffaloes of Ceylon are the same as those of India, but the horns are inferior in size. "The charge of a buffalo is a serious matter." says Sir Samuel Baker. "Many animals charge when infuriated, but they can generally be turned aside by the stunning blow of a rifle-shot, even if they be not mortally wounded. But a buffalo is a devil incarnate when it has once decided on the offensive; nothing will turn it. It must be actually stopped by death, sudden and instantaneous, as nothing else will stop it. If not killed, it will assuredly destroy its adversary. There is no creature in existence so determined to stamp the life out of its opponents, and the intensity of its fury is unsurpassed when a wounded bull rushes forward upon its last desperate charge. Should it succeed in overthrowing its antagonist, it will not only gore the body with its horns, but will kneel upon the lifeless form, and stamp it with its hoofs till the mutilated remains are beyond recognition."