ii6 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



slide down. A native, who had been sent back to 

 the nearest kampong, or native village, to recruit 

 men and water-buffaloes, had soon returned with a 

 score of other natives, driving six water-buffaloes 

 before them. Then I went through the usual busi- 

 ness of holding a meeting and explaining carefully, 

 in the greatest detail, exactly what we were about 

 to do and how we were to do it ; what each man was 

 to do and when and how. When they understood 

 perfectly, we set about digging away the wall that 

 separated the rhinoceros from the open end of the 

 cage. With a little more than one foot of earth 

 remaining, we began to prod him. The immense 

 beast pounded his feet on the bottom of the pit, 

 grunting and moving forward as rapidly as he 

 could get foothold. He put his head against the 

 wall and rooted; the wall toppled over and he 

 lurched out of the pit and into the cage. The na- 

 tives slipped the end-bar into place. 



The capture was finished but not the work. A 

 rhinoceros cannot be broken and driven through 

 the jungle like an elephant ; he must be hauled every 

 foot of the way. W^ith the six water-buffaloes 

 straining and every native giving a hand, we pulled 

 the cage up the incline and mounted it on the run- 

 ners. It took a week of steady cutting to clear the 

 way, so that we could drag the cage to the Treng- 

 ganu River. There we built a heavy raft and 

 floated the cage down to port. Another two weeks 



