A RIDE THROUGH RHINO COUNTRY | 319 
which is rare, will wheel sharply up wind and charge 
right down on the enemy they can but dimly see. Even 
then, nine times out of ten,a rifle ball at twenty yards 
hitting them anywhere about the head or the neck will 
make them swerve to one side in their charge, so they 
are not as dangerous as they look, which is fortunate, 
for there are few more disturbing sights than a two-ton 
rhino coming straight at you, his ugly head and threaten- 
ing horns held well down, and at a pace so fast that no 
good runner could keep away from him. To the un- 
armed man and to the native he is specially dangerous, 
and a good many of these latter are killed by him. As such 
an accident seems of little consequence to the herdsman 
the news of it seldom reaches the local authorities. But 
they will drive their herds a long way round to avoid a 
bit of bush into which fresh tracks of rhino lead. 
Some years ago, a noted professor of biology interested 
me greatly as he showed me the skull of a Myocene rhi- 
noceros. In those far-away days the beast must have 
been well able to take care of himself, even in the dan- 
gerous company which he kept. The convolutions of 
the brain of the Myocene rhinoceros are fine, very much 
superior to those of his present-day descendant. The 
sawtooth tiger and cave bear took little chance out of him. 
He somehow so managed things, that while they disap- 
peared he survived to see the end of his redoubtable an- 
tagonists. Then gradually life must have become too 
easy for him. He was big and burly and well armed; 
other animals kept out of his way. The inevitable con- 
sequences ensued. Competition keen and fierce had kept 
him up. The struggle for existence had made him the 
formidable, brainy beast that he was. When the struggle 
was over and his brain was no longer put to its best use, 
he began, like poor Dean Swift, “to die atop.” The 
African fodder is as good as of yore. His hide is as thick, 
