White Rhinoceros 



At last ! ! ! When I had long given up the 

 idea as hopeless ; imagining that I was not 

 fated to get one of these monsters ; that they 

 had conspired amongst themselves to keep out of 

 my way, even in their own favourite localities ; 

 that if I wounded one, he would go on and 

 on, and thus wear out the prescribed duration of 

 my stay. Every device had failed, even heavy 

 bribery of the natives, to find one for me : till, as 

 I shall now relate, in a most unexpected place, 

 where the country round had been harried and 

 thoroughly disturbed in my pursuit of elephant, 

 one appeared as if by magic under my very 

 nose. 



I happened one fine day after tea to be pen- 

 sively strolling along with my rifle — one never 

 leaves it at home under any circumstances — up a 

 small, rocky, dry khor, fringed on either side by 

 dense thorn thickets on the tops of the steep 

 banks. The chatter of the birds in the trees 

 overhead and the varied hues of their plumage 

 had kept me interested during my walk, and I 

 was just poking about in search of the lair of 

 a curious species of field-mouse, when crunch ! 

 crunch ! round a corner in the nullah came a 

 rhino. From the ridiculous to the sublime ! 



He had, I imagine, been sauntering along on 

 his way to water with a deliberation equal to my 

 own. Be this as it may, we found ourselves face 

 to face some twenty paces apart. I was quite as 



277 



