AGE STRENGTH SPEED FOOD. 375 



ungainly legs and feet, and diminutive organs of vision, the 

 rhinoceros is the very image of ugliness. 



I have no data that would enable me to determine the age 

 of this animal, but if we are to judge from the length of time 

 that the horns require to be perfected, and supposing the an- 

 imal to continue to grow in the mean while, it may be safe- 

 ly conjectured that he is one of the most long-lived of beasts. 

 Indeed, it is probable he attains the age of one hundred 

 years. 



In strength the rhinoceros is scarcely inferior to the ele- 

 phant. Of its prodigious power sufficient evidence was 

 shown in the manner in which it charged the missionary 

 wagon, as mentioned at page 50 of this volume. It is on 

 record, moreover, that the rhinoceros which Emanuel, King 

 of Portugal, sent to the Pope in the year 1513, destroyed, in 

 a paroxysm of fury, the vessel in which he was transported. 



Ungainly and heavy as the rhinoceros looks, it is, never- 

 theless, so exceedingly swift of foot — at least as regards the 

 black species — "that a horse with a rider," to quote the 

 words of Gordon Gumming, " can rarely manage to overtake 

 it." The testimony of Captain Harris is to the like effect ; 

 for, when speaking of the chase of this animal, and after tell- 

 ing us that it is most difficult to kill, he says, "From its 

 clumsy appearance, one would never suppose it could dart 

 about as it does, like lightning." 



The food of the rhinoceros consists entirely, as mentioned, 

 of vegetables, shoots of trees, grasses, &c. It is fond of the 

 sugar-cane, and eats all kinds of grain ;* but it does not seem 

 to be a voracious feeder. Indeed, it would appear to be 

 somewhat fastidious in the selection of its food, in search of 

 which it wanders far and wide. 



* The Asiatic specimen in the Zoological Gardens, Eegent's Park, 

 is fed on clover, straw, rice, and bran. His daily allowance is one 

 truss of straw, three quarters of a truss of clover, one quart of rice, 

 half a bushel of bran, and twenty to twenty-four gallons of v/ater. 



