THE PACHYDERMS 65 



The white rhinoceros, although normally a sluggish 

 and unwieldy beast, could, when alarmed or excited, 

 run with extraordinary speed. Its trot was a fast 

 one, but when it broke into a gallop it required a 

 good horse to run up to it. The female of this 

 species had a curious trick of keeping her calf running, 

 when danger threatened, just in front of her huge 

 snout, guiding it at the same time with wonderful 

 dexterity by means of her fore-horn. 



The numbers of these great creatures slain by the 

 hunters of from thirty to sixty years ago is almost 

 incredible. Oswell and Vardon shot eighty-nine 

 rhinoceroses, many of them the white species, in one 

 season. C. J. Andersson killed to his own rifle some 

 sixty of them during a season in South- West Africa. 

 They were shot in those days in large numbers by 

 hunters lying out at night watching the desert water- 

 ing-places. As many as eight of these huge creatures 

 would be butchered, by a single gunner during a 

 night's shooting. It was a shocking waste of life, 

 and by the year 1885 the slaughter had begun to 

 have its inevitable effect, for rhinoceroses seem always 

 to have been slow-breeding creatures. 



The flesh of this rhinoceros was looked upon by 

 all South African hunters as extremely good. Selous, 

 a discriminating critic, speaks of it in terms of high 

 approval. The hump, cut off and roasted in the 

 skin in an ant-hill oven or a hole in the ground, was 

 the prime portion of the beast. At the end of the 

 rainy season, about March, the great creatures were at 

 their best and fattest ; but the white rhinoceros always 



