110 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
manner with impunity. Everything but an elephant 
or another rhino would get out of the way of one of 
these investigating rushes, and of course an elephant 
or another rhino is big enough for even the rhino’s 
poor eyes to see before he gets into trouble. 
The coming of the white man with the rifle upset 
all this, but the rhino has learned less about protect- 
ing himself from man than the other animals. Man 
went even further in breaking the rules of rhino exist- 
ence. The railroad was an even worse affront than 
the rifle. The rhino furnished some of the comedy 
of the invasion of the game country by the Uganda 
Railway. In the early days of that road a friend of 
mine was on the train one day when a rhino charged it. 
The train was standing still out in the middle of the 
plain. An old rhino, either hearing it or smelling 
man, set out on the customary charge. The train 
didn’t move and he didn’t swerve. He hit the run- 
ning board of one car at full speed. There was a 
terrific jolt. My friend rushed to the platform. As 
he reached it the rhino was getting up off his knees. 
He seemed a little groggy but he trotted off, conscious, 
perhaps, that railroad trains cannot be routed by the 
rhino’s traditional method of attack. 
