400 RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO [ch. xiv 



thither and was criss-crossed by others ; but Kongoni 

 and Kassitura gradually untangled the maze, found 

 where the beasts had drank at a small pool that morn- 

 ing, and then led us to where they were lying asleep 

 under some thorn-trees. It was about eleven o'clock. 

 As the bull rose, Kermit gave him a fatal shot with his 

 beloved Winchester. He galloped full speed toward us, 

 not charging, but in a mad panic of terror and bewilder- 

 ment, and with a bullet from the Holland I brought 

 him down in his tracks only a few yards away. The 

 cow went off at a gallop. The calf, a big creature, half 

 grown, hung about for some time, and came up quite 

 close, but was finally frightened away by shouting and 

 hand-clapping. Some cow herons were round these 

 rhino, and the head and body of the bull looked as if it 

 had been splashed with whitewash. 



It was an old bull, with a short, stubby, worn-down 

 horn. It was probably no heavier than a big ordinary 

 rhino bull such as we had shot on the Sotik, and its 

 horns were no larger, and the front and rear ones were 

 of the same proportions relatively to each other. But 

 the misshapen head was much larger, and the height 

 seemed greater because of the curious hump. This 

 fleshy hump is not over the high dorsal vertebra?, but 

 just forward of them, on the neck itself, and has no 

 connection with the spinal column. The square-mouthed 

 rhinoceros of South Africa is always described as being 

 very much bigger than the common prehensile-lipped 

 African rhinoceros, and as carrying much longer horns. 

 But the square-mouthed rhinos we saw and killed in 

 the Lado did not differ from the common kind in size 

 and horn development as much as we had been led to 

 expect ; although on an average they were undoubtedly 

 larger, and with bigger horns, yet there was in both 



