HOOK-LIPPED OR BLACK RHINOCEROS 647 



then returned on her footsteps. Mr. Hurlburt, the head of 

 the American mission at Kijabe, had been wantonly charged 

 by a rhino which killed his mule. 



A dozen times we came across rhinos while we were on 

 safari, or while we were on the trail of game. In such cases 

 one of us kept watch over the rhino, rifle cocked, while 

 the safari, or, if we were hunting, the trackers, marched so 

 as to keep to leeward. Once or twice the rhino never no- 

 ticed us. On the other occasions the beast saw us, but 

 dimly, and evidently could not make out what we were. 

 It would gaze toward us, head and tail up, and ears for- 

 ward, and make little runs to and fro, perhaps even advanc- 

 ing a few yards; but in no case did the beast actually charge. 

 In one instance, however, it did charge and toss a man, a 

 few minutes after we had left it. This was a rhino we had 

 come across while we were trailing a buffalo herd. Cun- 

 inghame did not wish to leave the trail, so Colonel Roosevelt 

 went toward the rhino, and by waving his hat and shouting— 

 not too loud, for fear of scaring the buffalo — he finally made 

 it move off a couple of hundred yards, and he and Cuning- 

 hame went on unmolested. But a quarter of an hour after- 

 ward three of the porters returned to look for a knife which 

 one of them had dropped while we were engaged in frighten- 

 ing away the rhino; and this time the brute came for them, 

 and tossed one, goring him in the thigh, and then galloped 

 on without turning. Whenever they got our wind they 

 always ran, except on one occasion when a cow rhino ad- 

 vanced on us, unprovoked, from thick brush, tossing and 

 twisting her head. We are not sure that she meant to 

 charge; but when she got within forty yards we grew un- 

 pleasantly uncertain as to her intentions and shot her. 



