The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 - 1950) 
Wednesday 14 April 1909 p2 Article


The Cape Buffalo's Superiority in Strength and Gourage.

The real king of beasts is undoubtedly the Cape buffalo, writes Stanley Portal Hyatt, in the 'Outlook.' 
No other animal combines in the same degree courage, strength and ferocity. Moreover, the hunter who 
has shot him may claim to have proved his own courage beyond any possibility of dispute, for he must 
have killed his quarry fairly and squarely. 

The lion or the tiger may be bagged from the safety of a tree. The Cape buffalo is a truly formidable 
beast, and there seems little question that, as the numbers diminish, the survivors grow more and more 
dangerous to hunt. Whatever he may have been in former days, when he inhabited more open veldt, the 
buffalo is now the most vindictive of boasts. True, if left alone, he rarely if ever attacks a man; 
but he becomes obsessed with the idea of revenge.

He may charge at once, head down, his huge mass of frontal bones protecting his brain, and rendering 
an instantly fatal shot almost impossible; or he may wait hours, feigning to run away, then doubling 
back and picking up the spoor of his adversary, in order to charge from behind. His ferocity is equalled 
only by his cunning. Yet, withal, there is something very noble about him. He is not a wantonly destructive 
pest, like the lion, who slinks off at dawn after having done his damage, and will not face his pursuers 
as long as escape is possible. 

In one respect only is the lion kingly - his strength is appalling. He can break the neck of a full-grown 
bullock with a singlo blow of his paw, and can drag the body a quarter of a mile over rough ground. 
According to the natives, who should know, he can take a donkey in his jaws, throw it on his back, and 
then leap the fence of the cattle kraal with his prey. 

Relatively speaking, his jaws are not very strong; they are not to be compared with those of the hyena,
 who cracks the bones the lion leaves, but the power of his limbs is enormous, and, contrary to generally 
accepted idea, he usually slays his victim with a blow, not with his tooth. 

Yet this is the same animal who, when he cannot catch larger game, often spends hours sitting on a rock 
waiting for lizards and rats to come from underneath it...