-♦) Rhinoceroses 



While all this was happening, we had lying in the 

 camp a man who had twice been thrown into the air by 

 a rhinoceros the day before, and who was only by a 

 miracle recovering from his injuries. 



Many notions acquired by us at school are soon 

 dissipated when we find ourselves in Africa. On this 

 occasion it was brought home to me very effectively that 

 I had to do with an extraordinarily active and agile 

 brute, very different from the unwieldy and slow-moving 

 degenerate rhinoceros one was accustomed to seeing in 

 the Zoological Gardens. This was to be borne in upon 

 me by other glimpses of the animals in the distance, and 

 to be driven in still more by my next encounter with one. 



With my fowling-piece in my hand — dismounting 

 from my donkey, which had not yet fallen a victim to the 

 tsetse fiy — I hasten into a gorge thick with tall grass, in 

 the midst of which I had seen guinea-towl alight. 



As usual, they have run away from the spot where 

 they went in. I follow them quickly, hoping to make 

 them break cover. Suddenly a brownish-black mass arises. 

 right in my path and takes up a sitting position for a 

 second, and my still somewhat unaccustomed eyes recog- 

 nise the huge proportions of a rhinoceros. 



The brain has to work quickly in such moments. I 

 lie down flat upon the ground. Grunting and snorting^ 

 the rhinoceros rushes past me a foot away, raising clouds 

 of dust as he goes, towards the caravan, and right past 

 my friend, Alfred Kaiser. 



Kaiser, who had twice been spitted by a rhinoceros, 

 and had made miraculous recoveries on both occasions- 



217 



