VI 



RHINOCEROS SHOT loi 



too far back. At first he kept along the ridge, and 

 W.'s ball having slightly crippled him, we managed 

 to get right above him with our second guns ; on 

 seeing which he turned, and went at a gallop down 

 the almost precipitous face of the hill, picking his 

 steps amongst the great blocks of stone in an extra- 

 ordinary manner. Before he had got far, however, 

 W. fired from above, when, the animal's fore-legs 

 seeming to give way, he pitched on his head, and 

 turned the fairest and most astonishing somersault I 

 ever saw. He was up again in a second, but I was 

 close behind, and when on reaching the level ground 

 he turned along the face of the hill and. offered me a 

 good chance, I fired at his shoulder, making a bad 

 but very lucky shot, as I broke his neck, and of 

 course killed him on the spot. We found that the 

 bullet W. had fired from above had caught him in 

 the neck, about a foot behind the head ; it must have 

 just grazed the vertebral column, paralysing the 

 animal for an instant, which accounted for the 

 wonderful manner in which he had rolled head over 

 heels down the hill. 



On reaching W.'s skerm once more, we held a 

 council of war, and determined that, as the elephants 

 seemed to have left this part of the country, and 

 neither of us had been to the waggons to see how 

 our property was being looked after for more than 

 two months, we ough;: to go thither at once. Accord- 

 ingly, the next morning we started eastwards, and 

 late in the afternoon reached the skerm which had 

 been my headquarters during the best part of August, 

 and which we had no difficulty in finding, as it was 

 situated at the foot of a peculiarly -shaped hill. 

 Strange, we had been hunting within a day's journey 

 of one another for so long, and yet neither of us had 



