THE GREAT THICK-SKINNED ANIMALS 167 



and resentful of interference. He usually charges a man on sight, 

 and his enormous weight and strength, coupled with the two short 

 horns on his snout, render him one of the most dangerous species of 

 African game. The muzzle is long and somewhat flat and from this 

 the two horns project, placed one behind the other and varying in 

 length. Several men have been tossed on these deadly horns and by 

 some miracle lived to tell the tale. All were badly crippled. The 

 animal rarely fails to kill and mangle beyond recognition any hunter 

 who either through an accident or nervousness misses his shot. There 

 is a well known and authentic story of one terrible attack by a rhino. 

 While a gang of twenty-one slaves was being taken down to the coast 

 chained neck to neck, a big rhino took out of the bush and impaled the 

 center man on his horn, breaking the necks of all the others by the 

 suddenness of the shock. 



Rhinoceros are difficult to kill, as soft-nose bullets merely splash 

 out on their thick, naked hides. Here again the big .450 express rifle 

 with its steel-jacketed bullets is invaluable. The brownish-black skin, 

 rugged but without folds, makes a good target, and a shot either just 

 behind the foreshoulder or in the curve between the neck and shoulder 

 is apt to prove fatal. 



MR. GUMMING TELLS THE FOLLOWING INTERESTING STORY OF BEING 



CHASED BY A RHINOCEROS. 



"On the 22d, says Mr, Gumming, ordering my men to move on 

 toward a fountain in the center of the plain, I rode forth with Ruyter, 

 and held east through a grove of lofty and wide-spreading mimosas, 

 most of which were more or less damaged by the gigantic strength of 

 a troop of elephants, which had passed there about twelve months 

 before. Having proceeded about two miles with large herds of game 

 on every side, I observed a crusty-looking, old bull borele, or black 

 rhinoceros, cocking his ears one hundred yards in advance. He had 

 not observed us ; and soon after he walked slowly toward us, and stood 

 broadside to, eating some wait-a-bit thorns within fifty yards of me. 

 T fired from my saddle, and sent a bullet in behind his shoulder, upon 

 which he rushed forward about one hundred yards in tremendous con- 

 sternation, blowing like a grampus, and then stood looking about 



