Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



allowed him to come quite close on account of 

 the rapidly failing light, and when his head went 

 down to graze, pulled the trigger so as to hit 

 him in the neck. 



He fell to the shot twelve yards away, got up, 

 spun round like a tee-to-tum, squealing blue 

 murder the while, and disappeared in a cloud of 

 dust. I must have hit him too low on the 

 hardest and thickest part of his forehead as he 

 faced us, and so he got off with little worse than 

 a bad headache. 



Curses ? The air went blue for miles ! I was, 

 of course, a double-distilled donkey for having 

 chanced a shot so late in the evening ; but then 

 the rhino mightn't have been there next day, 

 you see ; and he zvas so close. I honestly be- 

 lieve most people would have acted in the same 

 manner, and have tried their luck, instead of 

 leaving an animal they particularly wanted till 

 a problematical to-morrow. There's many a slip, 

 however ; and it shows how easy it is to miss 

 one's mark in the dusk, leave alone moonlight ! 



At last ! at last ! ! I am able to say that I 

 have had the good fortune to bag a white rhino. 



After many days' sweating and slaving ; after 

 marching hours at a time in the vain endeavour ; 

 after having been brouoht first-rate khabar ; after 

 having had the two chances mentioned before. 



276 



