i86 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



white — principally Boer — hunters, for up to the 

 latter date the natives only possessed a very few 

 firearms. Yet how many hunters were killed or 

 injured during the killing-off of this enormous 

 number of creatures, which have been so often 

 described as not only excessively savage and 

 dangerous when interfered with, but also subject 

 to sudden paroxysms of unprovoked fury ? I think 

 I have read all recent books on South African 

 hunting, but I cannot recall any mention of a white 

 man or a black man having been killed by a black 

 rhinoceros in any one of them, though both Oswell 

 and Andersson were badly injured and came very 

 near losins: their lives in encounters with individuals 

 of this species. I do not say that between 1836 

 and 1 87 1 no human being was killed by a black 

 rhinoceros in South Africa. All I wish to convey is 

 that such incidents must have been exceedingly 

 rare, for I cannot remember either to have read 

 any account of such a catastrophe or to have heard 

 any of the old Boer hunters mention such a case. 



Between 1872 and 1890, the period during which 

 both black and white rhinoceroses were practically 

 exterminated in all the countries between the 

 Limpopo and the Zambesi rivers, I can, however, 

 positively assert that no white hunter was killed or 

 even injured by a black rhinoceros in any part of 

 the immense territories comprised in the present 

 Southern Rhodesia and the Bechwanaland Pro- 

 tectorate, for no such accident could have happened 

 without my having heard of it ; nor did I ever hear 

 of a native hunter having been killed by one of 

 these animals durinof that time, althouorh one of the 

 old traders — George Kirton^ — told me that in 1868 

 a black rhinoceros had charged through his string 

 of porters, and driven its horn through both 



^ An elder brother of Argent Kirton, who was killed with Allan Wilson 

 in the Matabele War of 1893. 



