A TOUGH HIDE. 315 



I stood to breathe the cool air (for the heat below, 

 and even in the hollows of the mountain, was in- 

 tense). 



Here the scene was truly lovely. Below us, some 

 three thousand feet, lay the Shire valley, and only 

 now did one really know the extraordinary way in 

 which that river twists and turns about. Its con- 

 fluence with the Zambesi was plainly to be seen, look- 

 ing to the southward. 



While admiring the landscape, suddenly a rhinoceros 

 was heard to bolt, with a grunt, from some long grass in 

 a swampy ravine, about a hundred and fifty yards to 

 my right. Hurrying on the track with all possible 

 speed, I soon viewed him climbing the mountain above 

 me ; but he was on the alert, and the stony ground 

 and open forest rendered the chance of coming to close 

 quarters with him but a bad one. However, getting 

 within eighty yards, I gave him both barrels of 

 Rigby 10 behind the shoulder. As each bullet struck 

 his tough hide it sounded like hitting a rock. The 

 beast staggered a moment, then charged down the hill 

 close by me, but the men (as usual) had bolted with 

 my guns. Reloading the breech-loader, and calling 

 to the natives to follow, I hurried after him, and in a 

 quarter of an hour, on emerging from a deep ravine, 

 saw him ascending a spur of the mountain quietly, 

 and within fifty yards. Running as fast as I could up 

 the hill after him, I got to within some forty yards of 

 him, when, hearing me, he turned round. As he did 

 so I again fired at the shoulder, and another charge 

 slap down hill followed the report. Fortunately the 

 hill was very steep, for, as I stepped on one side, the 



