572 



RHINOCEROS. 



should hesitate much before admitting that there are 

 more than one species of rhinoceros in Africa. 



But whether there is only one species, or more than 

 one, the rhinoceros seems to be much more at home 

 in Africa than in India. In the latter country it is 

 not found in the interior, even where the banks of the 

 rivers are marshy ; and nearer to the sea it is not 

 found but in the jungles, or their close vicinity. The 

 African appears to be much more a ranging animal, 

 and though it resorts to the water several times in 

 the course of the day, it moves over the dry places in 

 the intervals, and feeds on the branches of the trees, 

 especially some of the species of acacia. This 

 ranging habit demands a little more resource, and 

 when an animal requires that, it is always given. The 

 lion of southern Africa, especially at some distance 

 into the interior, where his pastures are abundantly 

 supplied from the time that he is a cub, and all his 

 powers are, in consequence, fully developed, is cer- 

 tainly a much more formidable animal against very 

 large prey than the tiger of the Indian jungles. He 

 is not so little, or so capable of making his way in a 

 tangled cover as the tiger ; but tangled cover is not 

 the character of the country in which the lion is most 

 in his place. The lion is not a sea-side animal, or an 

 animal of the low and swampy places by the banks of 

 the great rivers. The plains, where there are alterna- 

 tions of pasture and bush, are the places where he is 

 most in his element ; and though he sometimes lies in 

 wait in the bush, he more frequently prowls along 

 the plains, and steals within the reach at which he can 

 capture his prey, under cover of the night rather than 

 of the herbage. 



It is probable that under such circumstances, the 

 lion, which makes a prize of the Cape buffalo and the 

 giraffe, may, in the absence of other prey, and when 

 excited by the joint influence of the heat of the sea- 

 son and hunger, attack the rhinoceros itself; and, 

 should he once fairly seat himself on its back, he 

 might be able to ride and gnaw it till it fell, and then 

 of course it would be his prey ihe same as though it 

 were a weaker animal. That this may be the case is 

 rendered more probable by the hide of the African 

 rhinoceros, though still a tough and compact one, 

 not being nearly so much so as that of the rhino- 

 ceros of India. This, of course, enables the animal 

 to be more fleet in its motions ; and along with this 

 fleetness there appears to be an increased acuteness 

 of the senses. Perhaps it may be as well to hear 

 Mr. Burchell for a little upon this point, as he had 

 excellent opportunities of studying the manners of the 

 African rhinoceros, and improved those opportunities 

 well. " Their smell (sense of smelling) is so keen," 

 says Mr. B., " and nice that they can know, even at 

 a great distance, whether any man be coming towards 

 them : on the first suspicion of this they take to 

 flight. Therefore it is only by approaching them 

 against the wind, or from the leeward, that the hunter 

 can ever expect to get within musket-shot. Yet, in 

 doing this, he must move silently and cautiously, so 

 as not to make the least noise in the bushes as he 

 passes through them ; otherwise their hearing (the 

 hearing 'of the rhinoceri, not the bushes) is so ex- 

 ceedingly quick, that they would instantly take 

 alarm, and move far away to some more undisturbed 

 spot. But the dangerous part of the business is, that 

 when they are thus disturbed, they sometimes become 

 furious, and take it into their head to pursue their 

 enemy ; and then, if they once get sight of the 



hunter, it is difficult for him to escape, unless he 

 possess a degree of coolness and presence of mind, 

 which in such a case is not always to be found. Yet, 

 if he will quietly wait till the enraged animal make 

 a run at him, and will then spring suddenly to one 

 side to let it pass, he may gain time enough to reload 

 his gun before the rhinoceros get sight of him again, 

 which fortunately it does slowly and with difficulty. 

 The knowledge of this imperfection of sight, which 

 is occasioned perhaps by the excessive smallness of 

 the aperture of the eye (its greatest length being 

 only one inch) in proportion to the bulk of the ani- 

 mal, encourages the hunter to advance without taking 

 much pains to conceal himself; and by attending to 

 the usual precautions just mentioned, he may safely 

 approach within musket-shot." 



The arts of the hunter would not, however, avail 

 him much, were it not for the musket ; and we want 

 a good account of the manner in which the aborigines 

 deal with this powerful animal, when they have not 

 the use of fire-arms. The poisoned arrow and the 

 hassaguay bring down the strength of the lion ; but 

 the arrow would need to be aimed by no ordinary 

 archer, and discharged from a bow of no ordinary 

 strength, which could penetrate the mail even of the 

 African rhinoceros. It may be, however, that, as 

 the skin, thick as it is, is very sensitive, the poisoning 

 of it by a puncture of no very great depth may be suf- 

 ficient to overcome even this animal. It is a curious 

 fact that, let the people of a country be as low in the 

 scale of civilisation and as destitute of anything which 

 we call knowledge as they possibly can, they are 

 never without the means of conquering the most 

 powerful animal that is to be found in their country. 

 Thus man, taken merely as man, and without any 

 reference to the degree of his knowledge and civilisa- 

 tion, always establishes his title to that dominion over 

 the other creatures which was at first given to him 

 by his Creator. Not only this ; but it very often 

 happens that those rude men, with their apparently 

 simple weapons, are much more efficient against the 

 powerful animals, than civilised men are with those 

 of a superior construction. In India, as in southern 

 Africa, the hunt of the tiger or the lion is seldom 

 undertaken without the natives being of the party; 

 and in all parts of America, when the hunt is attended 

 with great difficulty and danger, the Indian is always, 

 by way of eminence, the hunter. This seems at fisst 

 sight a curious fact, but it is a fact ; and the reason of 

 it is not of very difficult explanation. The mind of 

 the savage is concentrated upon a few operations ; 

 and for this reason he does them better than they can 

 be done by a civilised man, whose attention is divided 

 among a great multiplicity of subjects. Besides this, 

 the civilised man goes to the hunting of those ani- 

 mals with very little knowledge of them compared 

 with that of the savage, who has been trained from 

 his infancy in the manner in which he is to deal with 

 them ; and it would be absurd to suppose that civili- 

 sation should enable a man to do that which he does 

 not know ; and especially to do it better than one 

 who knows it well. 



SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS (R. Sumatrensis). This is 

 a smaller species than the two-horned rhinoceros of 

 Africa, even if we admit that there is in that quarter 

 of the world a larger and a smaller species. It ap- 

 pears, like the African one, to be more an animal of 

 the interior of the country than the Indian species, 

 or that of ^ava ; for, although the accounts mention 



