HOOK-LIPPED OR BLACK RHINOCEROS 649 



Doctor Kolb, who killed scores of rhinos, and was finally 

 mortally hurt by a cow which, upon being wounded, charged 

 him and thrust her horn through his stomach. An English 

 official was also crippled for life by a rhino he had wounded. 

 In dense bush a rhino is undoubtedly a dangerous antago- 

 nist at times, as well as being difficult to approach. On the 

 open plains we found them easy to approach and easy to 

 kill, and only occasionally dangerous; they were slow to de- 

 tect us, and then spent some moments deliberating before 

 concluding either to make off or to charge. But though less 

 dangerous than other dangerous game when hunted, the 

 rhinoceros is more prone than any other beast to act aggres- 

 sively when entirely unprovoked. The very stupidity and 

 dulness of sense which tend to render his truculence of little 

 danger to the hunter immensely add to the menace which 

 that truculence contains for the non-hunter, the wayfarer, 

 who stumbles across him. He fails to make out the man 

 until close by, and then waits, stupid and curious, until he 

 suddenly thinks himself menaced, or is excited to rage by 

 seeing the stranger near at hand, and forthwith charges. 

 There are some rhinos which charge from sheer wickedness; 

 but we are convinced that stupidity and curiosity are chiefly 

 responsible for the conduct of the average rhino, which makes 

 people think that it is about to charge them. When it does 

 charge, however, it shows astonishing speed and agility for 

 such an apparently unwieldy animal, whipping round in its 

 tracks like a polo pony, and galloping at a pace that forces 

 a horse to stretch himself. If it loses sight of the man it 

 will sometimes quarter for him like a pointer dog, swinging 

 its large head near the earth and snuffing for his tracks. 

 The 'Ndorobo told us that they found the rhino more dan- 



