AFRICAN RESEARCHES. 413 



under the name of " tartar emetic," by a worshipful company 

 whose mills are situated — not on Dartford Common — but 

 within a stone's throw of Bridge St. Blackfriars ; — equally to 

 be relied on for the certainty of its propulsive operation, al- 

 though in its modus operandi differing materially from that 

 of its black congener. And when the shades of evening close 

 round, and the hungry roar of rhe prowling monarch reverbe- 

 rates through the sullen gloom of the African forest, the tra- 

 veller, having administered a scruple dose to each of the oxen, 

 and primed himself with a few grains of this explosive mix- 

 ture, — feels that in the possession of an oesophageal canal, 

 nature has supplied him with a tube, from the mouth of which 

 the midnight intrusion of the tyrant of the woods is effectu- 

 ally repelled, — and in peaceful security takes his siesta, unbro- 

 ken till the flush of morning, even though the bristly whiskers 

 of the grim feline marauder, should brush the eyebrows of the 

 unconscious slumberer. 



Although Sir James does not appear to have contributed so 

 largely as Captain Harris, towards making the rhinoceros a 

 genus of by-gone days, yet that he now and then had the am- 

 bition to follow in the Captain's wake, is evident by the fol- 

 lowing passage. — 



" We approached these dangerous animals with some caution, crept upon 

 them, and got two or three flying shots at them ; but unless they are taken 

 standing, with deliberate aim at the back-bone, or behind the jaw, good halls 

 are thrown away upon them ; not that their hide, though more than an inch 

 thick, is impenetrable in other places to lead and pewter bullets (hard and 

 heavy), such as mine were, but because the rhinoceros runs away with a 

 bushel of balls fired through his ribs. In his side they seemed to make no 

 more impression on him, at the time of receiving them, than so many peas 

 would, though he may die from them afterwards. So our two first rhino- 

 ceroses, being continually on the move, escaped from us though we tickled 

 them roughly." 



After the hairy baboon story in the first part of the nar- 

 rative, for our hero, in vol. ii., to speak with such perfect 

 sangfroid of " tickling " a rhinoceros, or taking " deliberate 

 aim at its back-bone," sounds inexpressibly ludicrous. From 

 the top of a pit-fall, he possibly might so far screw up his 

 courage as to fire down upon the spinal region of some unfor- 

 tunate beast impaled on a stake at the bottom ; but let the 

 rhinoceros be roaming unfettered in his native wilds, with his 

 horns clapping one against the other, and we'll answer for it, 

 one clickety -click of these dermal appendages, or even a 

 glimpse of the blue- winged green-backed sentinel, would send 

 Sir James, and his whole posse comitatus, down on their mar- 

 row-bones before you could say " Jack Robinson." 



