THE OX AND BUFFALO
That great lumbering beast we call the ox, with his long horns and his slow, lazy walk, is one of the strong workers of the world. Go where we will we see him, pulling the plough or the cart and wagon. If we leave home and go over the world we shall find many people using the ox. In South Africa we may see long teams of them pulling the heavy wagons of the farmers. In India the Hindu people eat no meat, but they keep many cattle to work in their fields. It is the same in many other countries both of the Old and the New World.
Among our own people the ox is much used as a working animal. While large use is made of the horse and donkey, the strength and patience of the ox give it great value and it is used for many kinds of work. Though a slow, plodding animal, it can pull a big load by the aid of its wooden yoke. In the fields of the South the farmers and planters could not well get along without it.
Our ox is not the only worker of his kind. In far-off Asia there are two other animals which are cousins of the ox and are made to work like him. Their names belong to the end of the alphabet, for they are called the Yak and the Zebu. The Yak is found in Tibet and other parts of Central Asia, where it is tamed and put to work, but not to pull the cart or the plough. It can carry heavy loads and travel twenty miles a day.
Hauling Sugar Cane in Puerto Rico
This animal has a thick coat of long, silky hair, which hangs nearly to the ground. Ropes and cloth are made from it. The tail is just a great bunch of long hair. The Yak does not bellow like the ox but gives a short grunt. Its milk is very rich, and fine butter is made from it.
The White Yak of the Asiatic Mountains
The Zebu is kept in India, China, East Africa and the islands of the eastern seas. It is much like the ox but has a big hump of fat on its shoulders. Sometimes there are two humps. In this way it is like the camel. Some of the zebus are larger than any oxen and some are only as big as a large mastiff dog. They are quiet, gentle animals, made to work in the plough and in the road and also used for riding. They can travel from twenty to thirty miles a day.
There is another animal much used for the same kind of work, the Buffalo. This is not the animal long known in our country as the buffalo, but which is really not a buffalo, its proper name being bison. It is not a savage animal and could easily have been tamed and put to work. But as the settlers in the colonies had the ox and the horse already trained to their work no one tried to tame the bison. Since no one cared for these great animals, the hunters got after them and shot them in such vast numbers that now they are nearly all gone. Where fifty years ago there were millions of them in the West, to-day there are only a few hundreds to be found anywhere.
The American Bison alone on the Prairie
The real buffalo is found in the south of Asia and Europe, where it is tamed and put to work, much use being made of it. There is another species found in Africa which is very fierce and savage, hunters often being more afraid of it than they are of the lion. The buffalo of India is also savage in its wild state and the princes of that country set it to fight with the tiger in their public shows. Armed with great, sharp horns, it is more than a match for the tiger.
In its tame state the buffalo is a very docile animal when it is well treated, but will not bear bad treatment. In size and shape it is like a large, clumsy ox, but it is much stronger than the ox and can carry or draw a much heavier load. Thus it is of great value as a working animal.
Reproduced by Permission of the Philadelphia Museums
Cultivating Rice Field with the Chinese Ox. Hawaii
It is used in many parts of the East. The farmer in the Philippine Islands could not get along without it, as it is his common helper in the fields. Known there by the name of Carabao, it is loved by its owner and played with by his children, and is the plough-horse of the islands. It can be driven by a mere child. The plough used there is no more than a heavy stick of wood sharpened to a point at one end, with a handle for the farmer and a beam to which the buffalo is harnessed.
This is the way in which the rice fields of the East are worked. The buffalo is also kept in Egypt, Greece, Italy and some other countries and everywhere is a very useful working animal. But it has one habit that needs to be looked after.
By nature it is a swamp dweller, and can keep its head under water for two minutes at a time, feeling at the bottom of pools and streams for certain favorite plants. If it is to be kept in health it must have its daily mud-bath. It loves to fling itself in the mire and shuffle about until it is covered with mud from its tail to its eyes. When it has dried itself in the sun it looks like a huge clay image. It has its reason for this, for in those swamp regions are millions of stinging flies and the mud is intended as a coat of armor.
Strong as the buffalo is, it cannot work for more than two hours without rest, and will not live long if kept at a distance from streams. Its fondness for mud and water is the habit that needs to be looked after. It is not safe to load it with any goods that are likely to be spoiled by water, for it will lie down with its load in any stream it comes near.
Travellers who have ridden on the Philippine Carabaos have found out this habit in a way not to their liking, for they have more than once been flung suddenly into a mud-bath by their ugly steeds. If the animal sees a bed of mud along the road he is sure to fling himself into it unless kept out by a strong rein. And unless his rider gets off in a hurry he will be treated in the same way. In Italy the buffalo is most at home in the Pontine Marshes, and no one can keep it anywhere unless there are mud and water near at hand.
Reproduced by Permission of the Philadelphia Museums
The Carabao, the Working Animal of the Philippine Islands