THE MIGHTIEST NIMROD OF MODERN TIMES. 351 



looked. Instead of anything worse occurring, the charging elephant 

 simply stood beside the horse, which showed no more fear than 

 if the giant beast had been a rock; then the elephant walked quietly 

 away and Selous, a few minutes later, killed it. In all, that day he 

 slew, single handed, five great elephants. 



The rhinoceros, while not so dangerous, in Mr. Selous' opinion, 

 as an elephant or a lion, is a foe to be dreaded when aroused. He 

 has a fiendish temper, he is well-nigh omnipresent, and he resents 

 to the death the slightest intrusion upon his privacy. 



Seldom does it happen that one of these ponderous animals is 

 vanquished by a native foe, nevertheless an account is given where 

 a rhino, entering a river to drink, was seized under water by an 

 immense crocodile, which, having all the advantage of its own ele- 

 ment, gradually succeeded in dragging the land giant to deep water 

 and there drowning him. Yet it was Selous who attacked such a 

 rhinoceros and found himself plunged in an adventure that still 

 ranks as something almost incredible to naturalists. 



CONFRONTED BY A HUGE BULL RHINOCEROS. 



Armed with an old four-bore, muzzle-loading elephant gun, he 

 found himself confronted by a huge bull rhino, which came at him 

 head on. He fired at the head, between the eyes. 



'' When I fired," he writes, " the rhinoceros' legs seemed to 

 give way under it, and it just sank on the ground and then, rolling 

 on its side, \3.y quite still. 



" My four-ounce bullet had made quite a large hole in the front 

 of its head, into which I and several of my Kaffirs pushed our fin- 

 gers as far as they would go. 



" We went to the nearest tree, some sixty or seventy yards 

 away, and, after resting my two elephant guns — the one still un- 

 loaded — against its stem, returned to cut up what we believed to 

 be the carcass. 



" One of my Kaffirs, by name Soga, a big strong Makalaka, 

 at once plunged his assegai into the body of the prostrate rhino- 

 ceros and commenced to cut through the thick skin, pulling the blade 

 of the assegai toward him with a sawing motion. 



