THE AFRICAN RHINOCEROS 



Guaso-Narok and the Guaso-Nyiro, I started very early for 

 the jungle with some twenty-five men. Before it was quite 

 light enough to shoot accurately or to photograph, we had 

 to go through a stretch of very dense bush. As we had not 

 seen any rhinoceros tracks or other marks of their presence 

 in that particular place, we did not imagine that there 

 were any of these beasts around, when suddenly a little 

 tick bird flew up out of the thicket right in front of us, 

 and with his shrill " pt-jaeh, pt-jaeh " warned us to be on 

 our guard. 



No sooner had I heard the bird before the angry snif- 

 fing of a rhino announced that we were in dangerous com- 

 pany. The moment the tick bird gave the signal, my gun 

 bearer, of his own accord, reached forward the big .577 

 Express with the words, " Kifaru karibu, bwana, kamata 

 msinga " ("A rhinoceros is near, sir, take the ' cannon ' !") 

 The next minute two rhinos rushed forward and faced us, 

 right across a small opening in the bush, and for several 

 seconds we eyed each other at a distance of only some 

 ten yards or less. It was a big mother rhinoceros with 

 her half-grown calf, snorting at us from across a low, 

 red ant-hill. Unfortunately it was still too dark for a 

 snapshot. 



With the big gun at my shoulder, with safety-catch 

 pushed forward, and finger on the trigger, I was ready for 

 a " brain-shot," if the rhino had moved forward an inch, 

 but there she stood for a good many seconds motionless, 

 except for a few tossings of the head. Then the animal 

 turned around just as suddenly as she had appeared, and 

 rushed ofif into the dense bush, crashing down everything 

 in her wild attempt to escape. I was glad that the " inter- 



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