X RHINOCEROSES ATTACKING CARAVANS 193 



off to run away from the disagreeable smell, 



suddenly find itself confronted by another portion 



of the caravan, it will not turn back, but rush 



snorting through the line, sometimes perhaps 



injuring a man in its passage. It is, I think, 



owing to the fact that travellers, traders, and 



hunters in East Africa have always employed 



very large numbers of porters, who marched in 



single file in a line often extending to several 



hundred yards in length, that incidents of this 



kind have been so frequent in that country. But 



when a black rhinoceros just rushes through a long 



line of porters without singling out and following 



any particular man, I think such a proceeding is 



more the result of panic than anything else. My 



view is that the wind blowing obliquely across 



the line being taken by a caravan may reach a 



rhinoceros lying or standing some distance away. 



This animal at once takes alarm and runs off, at 



first perhaps at right angles to the direction from 



which the wind is blowing ; but on again turning 



up wind, as rhinoceroses almost invariably do, it 



comes right on to another portion of the straggling 



line of porters. Confronted by this line of men, 



whom it had at first tried to avoid, it will probably 



not turn back, but rather charge through them and 



continue its flight. The sight of the black rhinoceros 



is certainly very bad, and in cases where these 



animals have charged against waggons in South 



Africa, and trains on the Uganda Railway, it is 



difficult to say whether they were animated by 



pure bad temper or ran against these obstacles 



because they suddenly saw them moving right 



across their path, when they were endeavouring 



to escape from some other danger. 



Upon three occasions during 1873 black 

 rhinoceroses came close up to my camp at night, 

 snorting loudly, and upon one occasion, as I shall 



o 



