The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-08
THE WATER BUFFALO.
Native to Indian Jungles, It Has Been
 Domestlcated in Europe.

Domesticated in Europe.
 The watre buffalo, now the most valuable animal of burden and of draught in them ore populous parts of China and the Far East, in Egypt and in districts of Mesopotamia, Italy. Hungary and south Russia, as well as of Hindustan, still lives as huge and savage wild beast in the swampy jungles at the foot of the southeastern Himalayas, the delta of the Ganges and the plains of the central provinces and in Ceylon. Except the tiger it is the most dangerous animal in India to attack on foot. The horns of the Indian buffalo are enormous. When measured along thee urve they have frequently ben known to exceed twelve feet. If not killed" says Sir Samuel Baker. it will assuredly destroy it's adversary. There is no creature in ex- listence so determined to stamp out the life of it's opponents, and the intensity of fury is unsurpassed when a wound- ed bull buffalo rushes forward upon the last desperate charge. Should it succeed in overthrowing it's antagonist it will not only gore the body with it's horns. but will kneel upon the Hfeless form and stamp it with it's hoofs until 1t is mangled beyond all recognition"
 Yet the tame" buffalo, except that it's horns are not quite so large, is ex- aely the same anmal, ready Gin defence of it's boy hersman) to charge and trample on the tiger still of the same enormous bulk, yet the most docile Of all farm and dairy animals.
 The wanderings of the water buffalo are much connected iwth the expansion over suitable parts of the world of the growth of rice. The huge powerful and obedient beast is almost indispensable for the cultivation of the rice, because it enjoys working in the mixture of mud and water in which that swamp engendered grain is planted. That is why the southern Chinese adopted the buffalo from the Hindu adyenturers who settled in the Far Eastern archi- pelagoes, and make it almost part of their family, in which it acts as per- ambulator and exercise cart for the children, who sit on it's back all day when it has holiday as steam plaugh" for the rice fields, and also as | a general traction engine on the roads.
 Oliver Ready in his Sport in South ern China" says:
 In central and southern China these i descendants of the fierce herds of the Indian jungles are the most striking feature in rural life. Their bodies of enormous bulk black devoid of hair, their heavy and enormous semicircular horns are alarming to look at, but in reality the Chinamans buffalo Is most docile. In summer, when not at work, they lie for hours sunk up to their nostrils in the canls and streams. It is rather pretty to see one of these un- wieldy, dangerous looking brutes being led quietly along, by means of thin string attached to it's nose, by a wee native girl, who, when tired of walking, stops the animal, draws it's head down by the string, places her tiny foot on 1 the massive horn, and is slowly raised 1 from the ground by the buffalo and fifty gently to the level of its back, which is so broad that she can kneel and play on it while her charge is grazing. These buffaloes are chiefly employed in the cultivation of rice, and as their flesh is rarely eaten by the Chinese they usually doe of old age. On one occasion I saw a large family Iof natives returning mournfully to their village from neighboring mea- dow, and on making inquiry was told ! they had been to bury their water buffalo, which had just died after a faithful service of more than twenty years.
 I think there can be very little doubt that the Indian buffaloes were brought to Egypt by sea from the ports of lower India by the Arab traders, pos sibly as passengers with rich Indian merchants. If a Hindu rajah comes over to England now he often insists on having COW buffalo on board to provide him with milk, buffalo milk being greatly preferred to that of cows. The Arabs, and possibly before them Hindu sea traders, had from most ancient days-certainly from the time of Solomon-a great trade bet tween Egypt and India by sea. It was flourishing in the days of the Tudors
 When Vasco da Gama discovered that he had rounded the cape of Good Hope he had an interview with a friendly sheik, probably at Mombasa, who told him that he was quite on the right
 track and that if he sailed straight eastward he would hit the coast of h.
 dia. Also that if he sailed at once he
 would get there before the "Moorish,
 Ii. e., Arab, fleet, and have the market
 for spice to himself. He took the ad-
 vice, and though he had some difficulty in getting a full cargo, he did 500 al last and left when the Arab fleet came
 How he got back to Lisbon With hi cloves and nutmegs, and how 1t wa
 instantly recognized that the Indiar trade which the Turks had stopped wal
 open again, and how the prices o spices at once fell, to the great joy O
 northern Europe, which had been sui
 fering fro scurvy because of the over use of salt for preserving winter pro : visions, belongs to another story. Bu ' the Moorish fleet" explains how tn buffaloes got in Africa Another Aral fleet traded for ages from southern In | dia to the Persian Gulf. There is m doubt that the crews took the usefu buffalo to the swamps of the lowe : Euphrates and Tigris, whence the, spread to the uper waters and wer f taken across the regular old trad . route via Damascus to the headwater '. of the Jordan. Tn this most obscur