VIEW ON THE N]IKI SWAMI'S DURING THE INUNDATION- 



XI 



Rhinoceroses 



T li 7" HEN you h;i\-e spent a year travelling over Masai- 

 V V Nyika, and have thus seen for yourself the 

 number of rhinoceroses still existing in that region, you 

 are able to form some notion of the extent to which 

 elephants must have tlourished on its plains and in its 

 forests before the days when they began to be hunted 

 systematically by traders. Rhinoceroses did not ofter the 

 traders an adequate equi\alent in their horns tor the 

 trouble and danger of hunting them, so they were not 

 much troubled about until recently, when the supply ot 

 elephants began to run short. It is only during the last 

 few years that their numbers have been decimated. 



In the course of the yc^ar I spent thcn-e I saw about 

 six hundred rhinoceroses with my own eyes, and found 

 the tracks of thousands. It is astonishin": how numerous 

 the) m'c in this region. Travellers who mereK pass 

 through the country by tht: caravan-routes would mar\el 

 if in the dr\- weather the\' found themselves on the top 

 of a liill 7,oco feet high, and could see the huge crowds 



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