THE PACHYDERMS 69 



canter, which is sufficiently fast to make a good horse 

 gallop its hardest. 



This rhinoceros is not a difficult beast to kill, 

 and, if approached up-wind during the daytime, 

 may often be despatched with a single bullet. Unless 

 hit, however, through the heart, vertebra (the neck 

 shot is a very good one), brain, or both lungs, the 

 beast will go on everlastingly and make good its 

 escape. If the brain is aimed for, the bullet should 

 be planted between the ear and the eye, a few inches 

 behind the eye. Even when severely wounded 

 the black rhinoceros will, if the hunter stands per- 

 fectly still, unless it gets his wind, pass him within 

 less than twenty yards. There is, I think, little 

 doubt that this rhinoceros is, on the whole, a more 

 irritable and savage beast than its white congener. 

 Many accidents, some fatal, have happened with it. 

 Some of these accidents may have been the result of 

 pure mischance. As, for example, when a black 

 rhinoceros in East Africa, getting the wind of a pass- 

 ing caravan, may in its headlong course, without 

 meaning a direct charge, blunder right through the 

 line of men, upsetting and even injuring some. 

 There is a ludicrous account of such a charge in one 

 of the quaint chronicles of the old Cape commanders, 

 which relates how Governor Simon Van der Stell, on 

 an expedition up country in 1685, was, with his 

 waggons and retinue, charged furiously by one of these 

 animals and much damage inflicted. 



Some writers and hunters speak of this rhino- 

 ceros as if it were a comparatively harmless beast ; 



