“Don’t they try to escape?”
“Never. Why should they? They have all they want. It is our business to keep them contented, and it’s easy.”
[92] ]“Their calves are at times obstreperous,” a man added, after a pause, and the others agreed, but said, “All you need do, at the worst, is to cut their horns, that is, cut off the tips.”
“Why not do that to all the calves? There’s somebody killed or hurt by buffaloes every year in Burma.”
“The glory of a buffalo is his horns. It would be wrong, because it would not be natural to blunt them. We would never do it unless we could not help it, when a particular beast is bad.”
“It’s too much bother, I suppose.”
“No, it’s easy. But it does not look natural. The buffalo with his horns blunted is disfigured, and seems to feel it.”
“No, no, it’s not natural at all,” said one after the other, with emphasis.
“How do you hunt the buffalo?”
“We never hunt the buffalo. No Burman ever did. At any rate, none ever does now. It is much safer and easier to catch and tame them; and it pays better.”