AN UNEXPECTED EIDE. 73 



is that I felt the beast move under me, when, as may be sup- 

 posed, I speedily jumped to the ground again, and made off. 

 Though my apprehensions in this instance were groundless, 

 the following anecdote, related to me by the natives, will 

 show that there is considerable danger in too quickly ap- 

 proaching an apparently dead rhinoceros :* 



Some Namaquas had shot one of these animals as it was 

 rising from its sleep. One of the party, imagining the beast 

 to be dead, straightway went up to it and (with like object 

 as myself) acted precisely as I had done. The beast, how- 

 ever, had only been stunned, and, as soon as he felt the cold 

 steel enter his body, he started to his feet and made off at full 

 speed. This action was so instantaneous as to prevent the 

 man from dismounting, and the other Namaquas were par- 

 alyzed with fear. Fortunately, however, after the beast had 

 run forty or fifty paces, he suddenly stopped short and looked 

 round. The favorable opportunity was not lost ; for one of 

 the party, more courageous than the rest, instantly fired, and, 

 as good luck would have it, brought the animal to the ground, 

 with his terror-stricken rider still clinging to his back. 



On rejoining our party, Stewardson was not a little sur- 

 prised at our success, and mortified at his own want of perse- 

 verance. The flesh of the rhinoceros was poor but not un- 

 palatable, and we remained a day at Annis to cut up and 

 dry part of it as provision for the journey. We also carried 

 away a goodly supply of the beast's hide for the purpose of 

 converting it into '" shamboks."t 



* Most animals, when shot or otherwise killed, fall on their sides ; 

 but the rhinoceros is often an exception to this rule : at least such is 

 my experience. In nine cases out of ten, of all those I have killed 

 during my wanderings in Africa — and they amount to upward of one 

 hundred — I found them on their knees, with the fore parts of their 

 ponderous heads resting on the ground. 



t The " shambok" (a Dutch term) consists of a strip of the stoui;- 

 est part of the hide of the rhinoceros or the hippopotamus. After 

 being stretched on the ground, and when it has acquired a certain 



D 



