CHAPTER IV
HUNTING THE AFRICAN BUFFALO
The buffalo is different from any other kind
of animal in Africa. A lion prefers not to fight
a man. He almost never attacks unprovoked,
and even when he does attack he is not vindictive.
The elephant, like the lion, prefers to be left alone.
But he is quicker to attack than the lion and he isn't
satisfied merely to knock out his man enemy. Complete
destruction is his aim. The buffalo is even
quicker than the elephant to take offence at man and
he is as keen-sighted, clever, and vindictive as the
elephant. As a matter of fact, the domesticated bull
is more likely to attack man without provocation
than any wild animal I know, and those who wandered
on foot around the bulls on our Western prairies
in the old cattle days probably experienced the same
kind of charges one gets from African buffaloes.
Nevertheless, despite all these qualities, which are almost universally attributed to the African buffalo, I am confident that the buffalo, like the elephant and other wild animals, has no instinctive enmity to man. That enmity, I am sure, is acquired by experience. I had an experience on the Aberdare Plateau with a band of elephants that had seen little or nothing of man, and until they learned about men from me they
