III.—A CHAT WITH THE AMERICAN BISON
THERE is no animal of the present day more impressive than the bull bison. The rhinoceros, terrific though it is, has no “presence.” The elephant, even the biggest of its race, does not inspire awe, for we are too familiar with the docile Behemoth. Our children ride upon its back and feed it with buns. The lion is superb in appearance and demeanour, but it has not the bulk to make it terrible, behind bars. Now the bison is both unfamiliar and huge, and short-tempered besides, “with bloodshot eyes in savage rifts of hair.” A snort from it when angry will blow your hat off, a butt from its head, if meant in earnest, would flatten a tiger.
What a sight it must have been to see that “masterful tramping of the bison herds”
“Raging up like doom
The dangerous dust-cloud that was full of eyes—
The bisons.”
[Illustration: “A BUTT FROM ITS HEAD, IF MEANT IN EARNEST, WOULD FLATTEN A TIGER.”]
Few white men living have seen it, Buffalo Bill is one of the few, for he and his half-breeds butchered them by the thousand, and it is to Buffalo Bill (subject to Mr. Bartlett's shrewd business capacity) that we owe the bison-cow now in the Zoo. Not the bull. This magnificent specimen of a fast-disappearing race came to us straight from America by purchase, and it is probably one of the finest bisons in existence. In a score of years the breed as wild animals will be extinct in America, and the solitary herd in the National Park will then represent the original American beast just as the herds at Chartley Park and Chillingham now represent the original British cattle. Their extermination has been very rapid but only in step with American progress, and after all, seeing that the splendid brutes are likely to be preserved to all time in the Yellowstone Valley, their disappearance from the rest of the country is nothing more than was to be expected or desired. What room is there in “the States,” where men are already beginning to complain of overcrowding, for multitudes of grass-consuming bison? For the farmer's or the dairyman's purpose they were of no more use than the hippopotamus in Africa. They had a very small economic value, and so long as one fine herd is maintained, it is only the sentimentalist who can find reasons to deplore their extinction.
It was in this mood that I approached our captive giant. He was sitting down, head erect, with knees bent under him. What a pigmy the lion opposite looked, also sitting down, as compared with him, and he was snorting to himself with suppressed rage!
“I wouldn't say much to him,” said the cow, “he has been very much put out by something on the other side of the partition, and if he butts it much he may knock it down. What is it in the next compartment?”
[Illustration: “ONLY YAKS.”]
“Only Yaks,” said I; “little things compared with you, but noisy to-day. But you really ought to have had their tails.”
“Are they so fine then?” she asked nervously.
“Peep through this chink and see for yourself.”
And she did so. “Ah! one of those would suit me well!” And then, after a pause, “Do you think it could be arranged?”
“Well, I don't know, but I'll see about it. Are you sorry to have seen the last of Buffalo Bill?”
[Illustration: “IT GIVES ME THE NERVES.”]
“Sorry! I was never so sick of anything in my life as that pretending to be scared and not wanting to be lassoed. Why, all I wanted was to get lassoed comfortably and allowed to go back to my stable. Didn't you see yourself what straight tracks we made for our hay, as soon as the business was over? We didn't want any of those Indians halloaing after us to make us go; nor any of that whip cracking.”
“And how do you like your present quarters?”
“They're capital! But there is a beast of a cat about here that won't understand we are alive, and jumps down onto us off the roof, and off us on to the top of the fence. When you're asleep in the sun you never think of cats dropping down on top of you. It gives me the nerves.”
I laughed at the notion of this huge tonnage suffering from nerves. “Is there nothing else to complain of here?”
“Nothing that I can remember just now,” was the reply. “You might think that we wanted more space, 'the freedom of the boundless prairie' and all that kind of thing. But we don't. None of us take exercise for the pleasure of it, and we would much rather have our water and our grass put regularly in one place than have to walk miles before we could pick up a meal or get a drink. Besides, we like sitting down as much as possible, and here we can do it all day long if we please, and I think, as a rule, we do. You must give up the 'boundless prairie' idea as rubbish. Nothing likes to have to worry after its food and find it and catch it. It would much rather have it comfortably served up in a regular way.”
“But the monkeys? They are always taking exercise, for the pleasure of it.”
“Monkeys? I don't know what they are. I never saw one in my life. Is that a monkey over there? It does nothing but walk backwards and forwards and stare over here.”
“That? No, that's not a monkey, that is a tiger.”
[Illustration: “WHAT'S IT STARING HERE FOR?”]
“What's it staring here for?”
“Because it wants to eat you.”
“Eat me! Why, what does it want to eat me for?”
“Because it knows you are good to eat. If it got its choice, though, it would eat the buffalo who is next door but one to you. For it knows all about buffaloes; and in Bhownagar, where this one came from—the Rajah brought it home the other day with him to give him fresh milk on the voyage—that tiger's relatives have no doubt eaten plenty of that buffalo's. Next door to the buffalo is another Indian beast, the gayal. It is a pity you cannot see the bull; he is a tremendous fellow.”
“What, bigger than my 'bos?'”
“Yes, even without any hair and wool. The gayal is quite smooth-skinned and even so, stands higher than your Bos Arnericanus. What he would be like if he had your husband's shaggy head, and mane, and beard, one can hardly imagine. His legs are suited to the weight they have to carry, and his forehead is a broad solid plate of bony horn. A splendid creature!”
“You interest me. Is he alone?”
“No, he has a wife. That is her voice, that absurdly woful moan that you hear now. But she is commonplace by comparison with him, and in one part of India they even keep the cows in a half-tame state for the sake of their milk. And sometimes the cows break away and join the gaurs in the jungle.”
“The gaurs?”
“Yes, the Indian 'bison' of which the natives tell such wondrous tales—how they sniff up big stones with their nostrils and snort them out at the hunters with the force of catapults, and how they face the rhinoceroses in the reeds, and meet them in full charge, forehead to forehead, and often vanquish them.”
“I have never heard of a rhinoceros before. But I should like to see this gayal bull. Do they ever let him out? If we are relations why should we not see more of each other?”
“I suppose they are afraid you might not agree together, and you are all so large and strong that if you got mixed it would take a week to separate you, and by that time there would have been a lot of mischief done. The yak, for instance, would come badly off.”
“Is that the animal with the fine tail which you thought would suit me?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you couldn't speak to the Superintendent about it?”
“Oh yes, I can, and will.”
“Will you, really? Thanks; and, by the way, you might say a word about the gayal,—my husband, I am sure, would be very pleased to meet any friend of yours. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”