Water buffalo

“ In the fields the buffalo has usually a complete suit of grey mud, and during the quiet evening hour goggles at you through the clouds of flies which surround his flapping ears and brutal nose, the only parts that can be seen of him above the surface of the mud-hole or the running water of the river. ”

“ The next morning they resumed their wayfaring, hungry and jaded, and had a dogged march of eighteen miles among the same kind of hills. At length they emerged upon a stream of clear water, one of the forks of Powder River, and to their great joy beheld once more wide grassy meadows, stocked with herds of buffalo. For several days they kept along the banks of the river, ascending it about eighteen miles. It was a hunter’s paradise; the buffaloes were in such abundance that they were enabled to kill as many as they pleased, and to jerk a sufficient supply of meat for several days’ journeying. ”

“ This kind of buffalo also lives in Italy, and because they are so fond of water they are called water buffaloes there. But in Italy they are not wild any more, as they have been tamed and used by men for a long time. ”

“ Tall grass grew along its edge. Putting it aside with his hand, and cautiously looking through it, the hunter can discern the huge shaggy back of the buffalo slowly swaying to and fro, as with his clumsy swinging gait he advances toward the water. ”

“ One sees a plant growing beneath the water, and in the soft, oozy bottom, near the edge, are the deep prints made by the fore feet of a big buffalo bull. About the soft, moist earth around the pool, and in the buffalo trail are the foot-tracks of the buffalo that have tramped around the pool, some of those nearest the edge having tilled with water. ”

“ These trails not only follow the most direct course to a given point, but always lead to water or a water-course. The traveler on the plains is frequently obliged to take to the trail of the buffalo in order to reach water. In many places the “buffalo wallow” furnishes a supply of stagnant water which, though extremely unpalatable, has often saved life. The buffalo wallow is a circular, dish-shaped, hole in the earth, about twelve feet in diameter and a foot [290] deep at its greatest concavity. During the warm season, immense clouds of dust are to be seen rising over a herd quietly grazing. ”

“ If she wanted water, she had only to cross the patch of maize behind the hut and seek out the place where the buffalo lay hidden, and put down her pail beside him. Then she would sit at her ease while he went to the lake and brought the bucket back brimming over. If she wanted wood, he would break the branches off the trees and lay them at her feet. And the villagers watched her return laden, and said to each other:
‘Surely the girls of her country are stronger than our girls, for none of them could cut so quickly or carry so much!’ But then, nobody knew that she had a buffalo for a servant. ”

“ Indeed most of the great buffalo roads lead to watering-places, and they have often been the means of conducting the thirsty traveller to the welcome rivulet or spring, when otherwise he might have perished upon the dry plain. Whether the buffalo are guided by some instinct towards water, is a question not satisfactorily solved. ”

“ The Toda buffalo is a variety of the Indian water-buffalo, but the life on the hills seems to have produced a much finer animal than that of the plains. Although thoroughly under the control of the Todas, the buffaloes are semi-wild and often attack people of a different race from their owners, and Europeans have frequently been severely injured by the onslaught of these animals. ”

“ In these regions they are almost exclusively used for burdens, draught, and milk, and everywhere their curved flat horns and sweet, calm, silly faces are to be seen above the water of the deep irrigation ditches. The buffalo, though usually mild enough to be driven by small children, has an uncertain temper, and can be roused to frightful ferocity. ”

“ The bladder of the animal is used as a bottle; and often, when the Indian is crossing the prairie where no water is to be found, he is saved from perishing of thirst by killing a buffalo and extracting the water which is found in its inside.
To resume: In spite of the rate at which the buffalo were going, we soon overtook them on our swift mustangs; and now began the most exciting part of our day’s sport. The leading portion of the herd kept close together; but in the rear the animals were separated—some lagging behind, others scattering on either side. ”

“ From the Gulf of Mexico to the Saskatchewan and from the Alleghanies to the Rockies the buffalo was to the hunter what wheat is to the farmer. Moose and antelope and deer were plentiful in the limited area of a favoured habitat. Provided with water and grass the buffalo could thrive in any latitude south of the sixties, with a preference for the open ground of the great central plains except when storms and heat drove the herds to the shelter of woods and valleys. ”

“ In the heart of the buffalo country the buffaloes were an insufferable nuisance. Vast herds were moving across our trail from south to north, trampling the moist and grassy soil into a black paste, and so polluting the streams and springs that drinking-water was often difficult to obtain. The vastness of some of these droves was most impressive, in spite of the calamitous ruin they left behind them. As far as the eye could reach, the surface of the earth was a heaving mass of animal life ”

“ The buffalo is amphibious in habit, and if left to itself will spend a considerable part of the time in mud and water. It is capable of keeping its head under water for two minutes at a time, exploring the bottom of streams or pools for certain favorite plants. To it a daily mud-bath is one of the necessities of life. He will fling himself on his side in the mire, and shuffle round and round until he is covered to the eyes with a mortar-like substance. ”

“ Other strategic lines of travel perhaps first opened by the buffalo were the portage paths between the heads of streams, especially those of the Ohio basin and the lake streams on the north and the Atlantic streams on the south. Undoubtedly in his migrations north and south the buffalo deeply wore the river trails, for here he was close to water and the river meadows which constantly offered all the nourishment he needed. At least, when white men first came into the West they found great paths over the portages which were more of the nature of buffalo roads than Indian trails. ”

“ Well, anyway, the buffalo fish eat grass or roots or something and in the spring, when the river is high and up over the bottoms, the buffalo fish swim up to wherever the edge of the river has gone in the grass and weeds and sometimes they swim in so close that their backs stick out of water and they sort of swim on their bellies in the mud—dozens and hundreds of them, big fat fellows. ”

“ A short distance before we reached the lake we caught sight of two buffaloes that were having a good time wallowing in a large puddle of mud and water. That is one of the buffalo's amusements: nothing delights him more than a wallow in the mud; and the more he can cause the stuff to adhere to his skin the better he seems to be satisfied. ”

“ The buffalo supplies them with almost all the necessaries of life; with habitations, food, clothing, and fuel; with strings for their bows, with thread, cordage, and trail-ropes for their horses, with coverings for their saddles, with vessels to hold water, with boats to cross streams, with glue, and with the means of purchasing all that they desire from the traders. ”

“ We traveled five days continuously, now and then killing and skinning a few straggling buffaloes that were handy on our route. These hides we put in the freight wagon and every night we spread them on the ground.
The sixth day we lay over in camp, to rest the stock; and the next day we pulled up onto the Pease river divide, and got a view of the rear of the great countless mass of buffaloes.
That night we camped on a tributary of Pease river, where there were five other hunting outfits, which had come from Sweet Water ahead of us, but had kept a few miles east of our route. ”

“ With the buffalo he ploughs, and on his back he rides or transports articles across mountains, by paths where even a mule would be unable to go. The Indian also uses the buffalo for crossing rivers and small lakes; he sits or stands on the broad back of the animal, which patiently enters the water, and often drags behind him a small cart that floats on the surface. ”

“ The swift ride over the dry plains through the clouds of dust, the killing of the buffalo, and finally the cutting up of the animals was physical labor far harder than most of that performed by civilized man. Usually, the buffalo were killed far from water, and the severe work that the man had been doing and the summer heat made him very thirsty. ”

“ All we want are the tongues and a piece of tender loin, and you may have all that is left," said the generous man.
"I am much obliged to you, Captain, and will follow you," I replied. There were eleven buffaloes in the herd and they were not more than a mile from us. The officers dashed ahead as if they had a sure thing on killing them all before I could come up with them; but I had noticed that the herd was making towards the creek for water, and as I knew buffalo nature, I was perfectly aware that it would be difficult to turn them from their direct course. ”

“ My cartridge-belt was chafing my hips. I stopped to buckle the belt another hole tighter, when all at once about 100 buffaloes came thundering down the slope from the northeast, in a mad rush for the water. Seemingly I was not noticed at all by them, but before they got fairly into the water the old "whoa-haws" (as the Indians called oxen) bolted and whirled to the southwest,—and away they went, out of the water, up the steep slope which joined onto the butte jutting down to the water. ”

“ Brackish water was found at intervals, and white saline crystallizations were seen along some of the streams. Although the soil was more sandy than further east, the buffalo grass was abundant and nutritious, so [331] that at no time had we any difficulty in finding grazing for our cattle, and the antelope that we killed were invariably in good condition. ”

“ When its surface shall have been broken by the plow, and the water-fall absorbed instead of shed off, the plains will resemble, in appearance and products, any other prairie country. The amount of moisture annually passing over them, in storm-clouds that burst further east, is abundantly sufficient to make the tract very fertile. It is a well established fact in relation to climatic influences, that moisture attracts moisture; and in this region the dry ground, with its few shallow streams, has now no claim upon the summer clouds. The tough buffalo grass has put a lock-jaw on the plain. ”

“ Here your streams run slow and sluggish; the water is not good; our children sicken and die. My young warriors have been out for nearly two moons, and find no buffalo; you said there were plenty; they find only the skeletons; the white hunters have killed them for their hides. ”

“ Exhilarating trips they were, over the crusted snow, when swift, breathless slides were taken down the hills, and skimming jumps from one level to another. It was on one of these trips that John and Ben saw for the first time a herd of buffalo, their great, brown, closely-packed bodies looking like an undulating sea of fresh earth against the whiteness of the snow. With them were large numbers of antelope, these weaker animals profiting by the ability of the powerful buffalo to break into the drifts and uncover the scanty herbage. ”

“ The majority of people, probably, imagine that the white man learned the art of trapping from the Indian; but the converse is the case. The savages, long before their contact with the white man, silently crept along the banks of the creeks and, caching themselves in the brush on their margin, with a patience characteristic of the race, waited for the beaver to show himself in the shallow water, or crawl on the banks, when they killed him with their stone-pointed arrows. ”

“ The corporate limits aggregate about fifty square miles; no city in the world, perhaps, possesses streets of such an extraordinary width. Through their whole vast length the magnificent trees which fringe them are irrigated by streams of pure water flowing from the several cañons in the vicinity. By this constant passage of these mountain streams, the air is deliciously cooled, and Salt Lake City made one of the most beautiful and charming places on the North American continent. ”

“ The buffalo’s head is so thickly thatched with long, shaggy hair that the animal is almost precluded from seeing an object directly in its front; and if the wind be against the hunter he can approach, with a little caution, a buffalo feeding on a prairie as level and bare as a billiard-table. Their sense of smelling, however, is so acute, that it is impossible to get within shot when to windward, as, at the distance of nearly half a mile, the animal will be seen to snuff the tainted air, and quickly satisfy himself of the vicinity of danger. ”

“ At first the buffaloes are merely guided forward, or driven slowly and with caution,—as boys in snow-time often drive larks toward their snares. When the animals, however, have entered between the converging lines of mock men, a rush, accompanied by hideous yells, is made upon them from behind: the result of which is, that they are impelled forward in a headlong course towards the precipice.
The buffalo is, at best, but a half-blind creature. Through the long, shaggy locks hanging over his frontlet he sees objects in a dubious light, or not at all. He depends more on his scent than his sight ”