Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

The method of castrating large cattle is not known in any part of Africa, and it is but little practised in India. When the bulls undergo this operation, it is not by cutting, but compressing their testicles; and although the Indians keep a number of these animals to draw their carriages, and work in their grounds, they do not by any means train up so many as we do. As in all hot countries the cows give but little milk; as the natives are but little acquainted with cheese and butter; and as the flesh of the calves is not so good as in Europe, they multiply the horned beasts less than we do. Besides, all those southern provinces of Africa and Asia, being much less peopled than Europe, there are a great number of wild oxen, who are taken when young; these become tame of themselves, and submit to labour without any resistance; they become so tractable, that they are managed with greater ease than horses, the voice of their master is only requisite to direct and make them obey; they are very careful of them in every respect, and give them plenty of the best food. These animals, thus raised, appear to be of a different nature from our oxen, who only know us by our bad treatment; the goad, whip, and scarcity of food, render them stupid and weak: in short, if we knew our own interest, we should treat what is dependent on us with better usage. Men of inferior rank, and people the least polished, seem to have a better sense than others of the laws of equality, and the shades of natural equality. The servant of the farmer may be said to be upon a level with his master; the horses of the Arabs, and the oxen of the Hottentots, are favourite domestics, companions in their exercises, assistants in their labour, and with whom they share their habitation, their bed, and their tables. Man, by this community, debases himself less than the beasts are elevated and humanized. They become affectionate, sensible, and intelligent; they there perform, through love, all that they do here through fear. They do more; for as their nature is raised by the gentleness of their education, and by the continuance of attention towards them, they become capable of actions almost human. The Hottentots bring up their oxen to war, and make use of them nearly in the same manner as the Indians do of the elephants; they instruct these oxen to guard their sheep, to conduct them from place to place, and to defend them from strangers and ferocious beasts; they teach them to know friends from enemies, to understand signs, and to obey the voice. Thus the most stupid of men are the best preceptors of beasts.

All the southern parts of Africa and Asia are then inhabited with bisons, or hunched oxen, among which is a great variety in respect to size, colour, shape of the horns, &c. On the contrary, all the northern countries of these two parts of the world, and the whole of Europe, comprehending the adjacent island, as far as the Azores, have only oxen without hunches, who derive their origin from the aurochs; and as the aurochs, which is our ox in a wild state, is larger and stronger than our domestic ones, so the bison, or wild hunched ox, is also stronger and larger than the tame ox of India. He is also sometimes smaller, but that depends only on the quantity of food. At Malabar, in Abyssinia, and Madagascar, where the meadows are naturally spacious and fertile, the bisons are of a prodigious size; in Africa and Arabia Petrea, where the land is dry, the zebus, or bisons, are of a small size.

In every part of America oxen without hunches are generally diffused, which the Spaniards and other Europeans have successively transported thither; these oxen have considerably multiplied, but are become less in these new countries. The species was absolutely unknown in South America; but in all the northern parts, as far as Florida, Louisiana, and even nearly to Mexico, the bisons, or hunched oxen, were found in great numbers. These bisons, which formerly inhabited the woods of Germany, Scotland, and other northern countries, have probably passed from one continent to the other, and are become, like other animals, smaller in this new world; and as they lived in climates more or less cold, their hair became longer or shorter. Their beards and hair is longer at Hudson’s Bay than at Mexico, and in general their hair is softer than the finest wool. We cannot, therefore, avoid believing these bisons of the new continent are of the same species as those of the old; they have preserved all the principal characters, as the hunch upon the shoulders, the long hair under the muzzle, and on the hinder parts of the body, and the short legs and tail; and by comparing what Hernandes, Fernandes, and every other historian and traveller of the new world have said, with what has been written concerning the bison of Europe, we shall be convinced, that these animals are not of a different species.

Thus the wild and domestic ox, the ox of Europe, Asia, America, and Africa; the bonasus, the aurochs, the bison, and the zebu, are all animals of the same species, which according to the differences of climate, food, and treatment, have undergone all the variations we have explained. The ox is the most useful animal, and also the most universally dispersed; for, excepting South America, he has been found in all parts; his constitution being equally formed to withstand the ardour of the south, or rigours of the north. He appears to be ancient in every climate; he is domestic in civilized nations, and wild in desart countries or among unpolished people. He supports himself by his own resources when in a state of nature, and never loses the qualities relative to the service of man. The young wild calves, which are taken from their mothers in India or Africa, become in a very short time, as tractable as those of the domestic kind; and this natural conformity is another striking proof of the identity of the species. The gentleness of character in these animals indicates the natural flexibility of their bodies; for in all species in which we have discovered the character of gentleness, and which have been subjected to a domestic state, there are more varieties than can be found in those which have remained wild through their character of inflexibility.

If it be asked, whether the aurochs or the bison be the primitive race of oxen, a satisfactory answer may be drawn from the facts we have just laid down. The hunch of the bison is, as it has been observed, no more than an accidental character, which is defaced and lost in the mixture of the two kinds. The aurochs, or ox without a hunch, is, then, the most powerful and predominant kind; if it were otherwise, the hunch, instead of disappearing, would extend and remain upon every one of this mixt breed. Besides, this hunch of the bison, like that of the camel, is less the production of Nature than the effect of labour, and the mark of slavery. From time immemorial, in almost every quarter of the globe, the ox has been obliged to carry burdens; the habitual, and often excessive load, has deformed their backs; and this deformity has been afterwards propagated through generations. Undeformed oxen are no longer to be seen, but in those countries where they have not made use of them as beasts of burden. In all Africa, and in the eastern continent, the oxen are hunched, occasioned by their having always carried loads on their shoulders. In Europe, where they are only employed for draught, they have not undergone this deformed alteration, which in the first place probably proceeds from the compression of the loads, and in the second from the abundance of food; for it disappears when the animal is lean and poorly fed. Some enslaved and hunched oxen might have escaped or been abandoned in the woods, and where their posterity would be loaded with the same deformity, which, far from disappearing, may have encreased by the abundance of food peculiar to uncultivated countries, so that this second breed would spread over all the desart lands of the north and south, and pass into the New Continent, like other animals, whose nature can support the cold. What still more confirms the identity of the species of the bison and aurochs, is, the bisons of North America have so strong a smell, that they have been called Musk Oxen by most travellers; and, at the same time, we find, by the accounts of many persons, that the aurochs, or wild ox of Prussia and Livonia, has the same scent of musk.

There remains, therefore, but two species, the buffalo and the ox, out of all the names placed at the head of this article, each of which the ancient and modern naturalists have treated as separate and distinct. These two animals, although greatly resembling each other, both domestic, often living under the same roof, and fed in the same meadows, have nevertheless constantly refused to unite though excited to it by their keepers. Their natures are more distant than that of the ass and the horse; there even appears to be a strong antipathy between them, for it is affirmed, that cows will not suckle young buffaloes, and the female buffaloes refuse the same kindness to the other calves. The buffalo is of a more obstinate nature, and less tractable than the ox. He obeys with great reluctance, and his temper is more coarse and brutal. Next to the hog, he is the filthiest of all domestic animals, and is very unwilling to be cleaned and dressed. His figure is very clumsy, and forbidding; his look stupidly wild; he stretches out his neck in an ignoble manner, and carries his head in a very bad posture, almost always inclined towards the ground. He bellows hideously, with a tone much stronger and deeper than that of the bull. His legs are thin, his tail bare, his physiognomy dark, and his skin as black as his hair. He differs chiefly from the ox by the colour of his hide, which is easily perceived under his spare covering of hair. His body is thicker and shorter than that of the ox; his legs are longer; his head proportionally much less; his horns are not so round, black, and partly compressed, and he has a tuft of frizzled hair over his forehead. His hide is likewise thicker and harder than that of the ox. His flesh is black, and hard, and not only disagreeable to the taste, but repugnant to the smell. The milk of the female is not so good as that of the cow, but she yields a greater quantity. In hot countries, almost all the cheese is made of buffalo’s milk. The flesh of the young buffaloes, though killed during the sucking time, is not a bit better. The hide alone is of more value than all the rest of the animal, whose tongue is the only part that is fit to eat: this hide is firm, pretty light, and almost impenetrable. As these animals are larger and stronger than oxen they are very serviceable; they make them draw, and not carry burdens; they lead them by the means of a ring passed through their nose. Two buffaloes harnessed, or rather chained, to a carriage, will draw as much as four strong horses. As they carry their necks and heads low, they employ the whole weight of their body in drawing, and their mass greatly surpasses that of a labouring horse, or ox.

The height and thickness of the buffalo alone indicates, that he is a native of warm countries. The largest quadrupeds belong to the torrid zone of the Old Continent; and the buffalo, for his magnitude, ought to be placed next to the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus. The camel is taller but less thick, and also a native of the southern countries of Africa and Asia. Nevertheless, buffaloes live and multiply in Italy, in France, and in other temperate provinces. Those kept in the royal menagerie, have brought forth two or three times; the female has but one at a birth, and goes with young about twelve months, which is another proof of the difference between this species and that of the cow, who only goes nine months. It appears also, that these animals are more gentle and less brutal in their native country, and the warmer the climate the more tractable is their nature. In Egypt they are more tractable than in Italy; and in India more so than in Egypt. Those of Italy have also more hair than those of Egypt, and those of Egypt more than those of India. Their coat is never entirely covered, because they are natives of hot countries; and in general, large animals of these climates have little or no hair.

There are a great number of wild buffaloes in the countries of Africa and India, which are watered by large rivers, and where extensive pasturages are found. The wild buffaloes go in droves and make great havock in cultivated lands, but they never attack the human species, unless they are wounded, and are then very dangerous; for they make directly at their enemy, throw him down, and trample him under their feet. They are, however, greatly terrified at the sight of fire, and are displeased at a red colour. Aldrovandus, Kolbe, and many other naturalists and travellers, assure us, that no person dare wear red cloaths in the country where the buffaloes are.[E] I know not whether this aversion to fire and a red colour be general among the buffaloes: for there are but few among our oxen who grow angry at the sight of red cloaths.

[E] Sonnini says, that he did not perceive the buffaloes of Egypt to be affected in this manner by a red colour, for all the inhabitants of this country wear round their neck and breast a chall of the same colour, without the buffaloes appearing to be affected or irritated.