AUTHOR SAVES KAMAPYTj's LIFE. 411 



sport as food, but several weeks elapsed before I could again 

 attack those animals with any coolness. 



About sunrise, Kamapyu, my half-caste boy, whom I had 

 left on the preceding evening about half a mile away, came 

 to the " skarm" to convey my guns and other things to our 

 encampment. In few words I related to him the mishap 

 that had befallen me. He listened with seeming incredulity, 

 but the sight of my gashed thigh soon convinced him I was 

 not in joke. 



I afterward directed him to take one of the guns and pro- 

 ceed in search of the wounded rhinoceros, cautioning him to 

 be careful in approaching the beast, which I had reason to 

 believe was not yet dead. He had only been absent a fe^^ 

 minutes when I heard a cry of distress. Striking my hand 

 against my forehead, I exclaimed, " Good God ! the brute 

 has attacked the lad also!" 



Seizing hold of my rifle, I scrambled through the bushes 

 as fast as my crippled condition would permit, and, when J 

 had proceeded two or three hundred yards, a scene suddenly 

 presented itself that I shall vividly remember to the last days 

 of my existence. Among some bushes, and within a couple 

 of yards of each other, stood the rhinoceros and the young 

 savage, the former supporting herself on three legs, covered 

 with blood and froth, and snorting in the most furious man- 

 ner ; the latter petrified with fear — spell-bound, as it were — 

 and riveted to the spot. Creeping, therefore, to the side of 

 the rhinoceros opposite to that on which the boy was stand- 

 ing, so as to draw her attention from him, I leveled and fired, 

 on which the beast charged wildly to and fro without any 

 distinct object. While she was thus occupied I poured in 

 shot after shot, but thought she would never fall. At length, 

 however, she sank slowly to the ground, and, imagining that 

 she was in her death agonies, and that all danger was over. 

 I walked unhesitatingly close up to her, and was on the poin t 

 of placing the muzzle of my gun to her ear to give her the 



