THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



An Austrian nobleman, whom I met in British East Af- 

 rica in 1906, told me of three very narrow escapes from 

 charging rhinos. Once he himself had had his left shoulder 

 bruised by a rhino which charged madly down upon him. 

 In spite of having been twice badly wounded, the beast 

 rushed so close past the Austrian, who with a side step 

 tried to save himself, that the rhino's shoulder hit him, 

 hurling him several feet out of the animal's way, while the 

 brute fortunately continued straight ahead. On another 

 occasion a female rhinoceros, accompanied by a young 

 calf, was encountered in the dense bush country on the 

 Mau escarpment, as the caravan was moving along in the 

 early morning. Suddenly there was an outcry among the 

 porters, who threw down their loads right and left, while 

 an angry rhino mother made straight for the cook, whom 

 it unfortunately succeeded in tearing to pieces with its 

 sharp-pointed horn before the hunter killed it with a well- 

 aimed bullet from his Mannlicher rifle. 



Not even at night is the caravan perfectly safe from 

 rhino attacks, and a good many times I have myself had 

 nightly visits from the dangerous pachyderm. Once when 

 in camp on the western slopes of Mt. Kenia I was awak- 

 ened during a moonlight night by shoutings and great 

 commotion in camp. Taking the big Express, I ran out 

 in front of the tent and came just in time to see the hind- 

 quarters of a big rhino, evidently a male, which had run 

 right through the camp between some of the porters' tents, 

 and had passed within three yards of my own tent, al- 

 though at the time a strong fire was blazing. 



Mr. Percival, the assistant game ranger in Nairobi, 

 told me of a similar, although much worse experience, 



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