158 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



In captivity, excepting the keen kongoni, or Coke harte- 

 beest, and a few others, the old-world antelopes are mentally 

 rather dull animals. They seem to have few thoughts, and 

 seldom use what they have; but when attacked or wounded 

 the roan antelope is hard to finish In captivity their chief 

 exercise consists in rubbing and wearing down their horns on 

 the iron bars of their indoor cages, but I must give one of our 

 brindled gnus extra credit for the enterprise and thoroughness 

 that he displayed in wrecking a powerfully-built water-trough, 

 composed of concrete and porcelain. The job was as well 

 done as if it had been the work of a big-horn ram showing off. 

 But that was the only exhibition of its kind by an African 

 antelope. 



The Alleged "Charge" of the Rhinoceros. For half a 

 century African hunters wrote of the assaults of African 

 rhinoceroses on caravans and hunting parties; and those 

 accounts actually established for that animal a reputation for 

 pugnacity. Of late years, however, the evil intentions of the 

 rhinoceros have been questioned by several hunters. Finally 

 Col. Theodore Roosevelt firmly declared his belief that the 

 usual supposed "charge" of the rhinoceros is nothing more no: 

 less than a movement to draw nearer to the strange man 

 object, on account of naturally poor vision, to see what men 

 look like. In fact, I think that most American sportsmen who 

 have hunted in Africa now share that view, and credit the 

 rhino with very rarely running at a hunter or a party in order 

 to do damage. 



The Okapi, of Central Africa, inhabits dense jungles of 

 arboreal vegetation and they are so expert in detecting the 

 presence of man and in escaping from him that thus far, so 

 far as we are aware, no white man has ever shot one! The 

 native hunters take them only in pitfalls or in nooses. Mr. 

 Herbert Lang, of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 diligently hunted the okapi, with native aid, but in spite of 

 all his skill in woodcraft the cunning of the okapi was so great, 



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