646 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



in their immediate neighborhood with indifference; yet we 

 have been informed by trustworthy eye-witnesses of one 

 rhinoceros charging a herd of zebra, and another some 

 buffalo. The rhinoceros gets out of the way of the elephant. 

 It will unquestionably on occasions charge men and domestic 

 animals entirely unprovoked. Twice we have known of one 

 charging an ox wagon; in one case an ox was killed; in the 

 other the rhino got entangled in the yokes and trek tow, 

 and the driver, an Africander, lashed it lustily with his 

 great whip, until it broke loose and ran off, leaving the ox- 

 span tumbled in wild confusion. The year before we were 

 at Nyeri one killed a white man, a surveyor, near that sta- 

 tion, charging him without any provocation at all. At that 

 time all the rhinos in that immediate neighborhood seemed 

 to suffer from a fit of bad temper; they kept charging any 

 one they met, and killed several natives. At last the district 

 commissioner undertook a crusade against them, and killed 

 fifteen, evidently including the various vicious ones, for 

 from that time all attacks on human beings ceased. Rhinos 

 frequently attack the long lines of porters on a safari, if 

 they pass to windward of it. Probably this is not, as a rule, 

 done from ferocity, but from angry bewilderment, the rhino 

 finding the scent of man in his nostrils whichever way he 

 goes, and finally thinking he is surrounded, and charging the 

 line. Usually he merely runs through the line, tossing any 

 porter who happens to be in his way; but he may grow irri- 

 tated and turn and hunt down a porter. One man was thus 

 killed while we were in Africa. Von Hohnel, the companion 

 of Teleki and Chanler on their explorations, was on one 

 occasion thus hunted down and very badly wounded by a 

 cow rhino which had charged through the safari and had 



