AX'ith Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



the skin has to be prepared with the greatest care, for 

 tlie hairs grow so loose!}- that, with the least inattention, 

 they are sure to come out. 



Now we have to work up the mountain-slope, often 

 p-)ainfully in the burning sun, on hands and feet. The 

 rocks are already quite hot. Lizards and geckos eye us 

 ■curiously, instantly disappearing in the grass or in holes. 

 The higher we climb the more plants and grasses we 

 hnd that are not entirely withered by the sun. The eye 

 of the hunter soon perceives among the rocks great 

 accumulations of dung, the nature of which tells of the 

 presence of numerous rock-badgers. And, in truth, this 

 mountain wilderness is thickly inhabited by those miniature 

 hoofed animals of which the Bible speaks, and which 

 zoology has, oddly enough, to class as relatives ot the 

 mighty rhinoceros. . . . 



F"ate has arranged things very differently for these 

 incongruous cousins. Thanks to their size and strength, 

 the rhinoceroses ruled their broad lands for hundreds and 

 thousands of years ; no foe of equal girth challenged them 

 in the struesle for existence. But at first, with the help 

 of the poisoned arrow, and nowadays with the help ot 

 little bits of metal only some few millimetres in size, which 

 are landed in the body of the beast from a long distance, 

 man has succeeded in well-nigh decimating this leviathan ; 

 and soon he will have annihilated him ! 



And thus the poor relations of the rhinoceroses, the 

 rock-badgers, who live in inaccessible rocky deserts, have 

 had a better destiny. Living like rabbits, multiplying 

 endlessly, timid and cautious — the old ones, at any rate, 



604 



