CH. xiv] MONITOR LIZARD 400 



both exactly wrong, so Kerinit could not take any 

 pliotos ; and accordingly he shot the cow behind the 

 shoulder. Away both animals went, Kermit tearing 

 along behind, while Grogan and I followed. iVfter a 

 sharp run of a mile and a half Kermit overtook them, 

 and brought down the cow\ The younger one then 

 trotted threateningly toward him. He let it get within 

 ten yards, trying to scare it ; as it kept coming on, and 

 could of course easily kill him, he then fired into its 

 face, to one side, so as to avoid inflicting a serious 

 injury, and, turning, off it went at a gallop. When I 

 came up the cow had raised itself on its forelegs, and he 

 was taking its picture. It had been wallowing, and its 

 w^hole body was covered wdth dry caked mud. It was 

 exactly the colour of the common rhino, but a little 

 larger than any cow of the latter that we had killed. 

 We at once sent for Heller — who had been working 

 without intermission since we struck the Lado, and 

 liked it -and waited by tlie body until he appeared, in 

 mid-afternoon. 



Here in the Lado we were in a wild, uninhabited 

 country, and foi* meat we depended entirely on our 

 rifles ; nor was there any difficulty in obtaining all we 

 needed. We only shot for meat, or for Museimi 

 specimens — all the Museum specimens being used for 

 food too — and as the naturalists were as busy as they 

 well could be, we found that, except when we were after 

 rhinoceros, it was not necessary to hunt for more than 

 half a day or thereabouts. On one of these hunts, on 

 wdiich he shot a couple of buck, Kermit also killed a 

 monitor lizard, and a crocodile ten feet long : it was a 

 female, and contained fifty-two eggs, which, when 

 scrambled, we ate and found good. 



The morning after Kermit killed his cow rhino he 



