CHAPTER X. 



HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS. 



FTER the elephant, the rhinoceros is the largest 

 animal on the globe ; and I have followed him 

 along the great rivers, through the marshes 

 and dense forests of Southern Africa, India, Java, and 

 Sumatra, where alone he is now found, although, like 

 the elephant, he was once much more common. There 

 are two varieties living, — one with one horn, the other 

 with two ; and it is to the latter class that the African 

 rhinoceros belongs. His eyes are small and deep-set; 

 his horns — one in front of the other — are of different 

 size and conical in shape, and not attached to the bone 

 of the nose, but simply to the skin, which is almost 

 hairless except at the tail, and along the ears. He 

 lives in the most untracked solitudes, near the large 

 rivers, and especially where a variety of acacia grows 

 of which he is very fond. Both classes of rhinoceros 

 are, like all vegetable-eating animals, fairly peaceable, 

 and he never attacks without provocation ; but w^hen 

 liis blood is up he becomes blindly furious, and his 

 strength and ferocity are without bounds. The deep 

 grunting noise which he makes ordinarily then becomes 



14 



