With Flashlight and Rifle -^ 



opportunities of obscrvint^ the rhinoceroses, not only in 

 the wooded parts ot this plateau, but also out on the 

 open plains, where they were to be seen both singly and 

 in herds. About this time my repeating rifle began to 

 get out of order. Nothing is more calculated to make 

 a man lose his nerve than his weapon's becoming useless 

 at a critical moment, when his very life depends upon 

 it. I was therefore much excited one day when I sighted 

 a pair oi sleeping rhinoceroses out on the Ijare ojjen 

 velt. In this instance I was lucky enough to kill one 

 of the animals at the distance of a hundred yards after 

 an hour's approach to it on all fours in the broiling sun. 

 The second took to tlight. Becoming gradually used to 

 their wa\s, I was fortunate also in subsequent encounters 

 with them. 



I may here relate a few episodes from n.iy own ex- 

 perience illustrating the hal)its of the rhinoceros. They will 

 serve to give the reader a true picture ot his character. I 

 shall never forget the day I brought down a very old bull 

 rhinoceros in British East Africa, not lar from Kibwezi. 

 It was a very windy morning, and I had just kilkxl a male 

 Grant's gazelle with only one large horn — I had missed it 

 with my first shot, just as I had done tor it I happened 

 to look over the j)lain to the left, and observed a great 

 black mass aljout two hundred yards awa\-. I tht)ught 

 at first it was the stump of a tree, but looking again a 

 tew minutes hiu-.r I touiul that it had vanished. My 

 I'leld-glasses brought home to mc^ the fact that it was a 

 rhinoceros, for there he was sitting in the animal's favourite 

 [josition, but now firther away. The very strong wind 



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