Rhinoceros Shooting. 77 



a quarter of a mile from the Manass, Matagoorie, our 

 destination, was in sight. About forty] yards ahead 

 of me was a huge rhinoceros, standing behind a very 

 large tree. Its head and neck were invisible, but the 

 shoulder was just exposed, and a shot from one of 

 my two groove rifles knocked it down and it lay 

 struggling on the ground. I fired three more barrels 

 into it, but it got up and very slowly, went away 

 only presenting to me its enormous stern. I told 

 the mahout to urge his beast on, but no punish- 

 ment w r ould induce it to accelerate its pace by 

 one inch. There I was, fifty yards behind, a 

 dense forest a hundred yards ahead, and not a pros- 

 pect of our heading the brute before it got into its 

 stronghold, where I could not follow ! But just then 

 J., who had been loitering behind, came up on a fast 

 elephant, ran alongside the rhinoceros, and killed it. 

 It was an immense beast with a horn thirteen inches 

 in length. I went on to camp, to superintend 

 arrangements for a stay of a day or two, but J. 

 w r ent off to the right, came upon another rhinoceros, 

 put seven balls into it, but lost it. When the mahouts 

 went to bring us in the head of the slain, they came 

 across a tiger eating a marsh deer, but as it was almost 

 dark we could not attempt to shoot Mr. Stripes 

 that evening. The next morning we went to look for 

 J's. rhinoceros. His mahout, new to these jungles, 

 failed to find the tangled brake into which the 

 animal had taken refuge, so after wasting several hours 

 in fruitlessly searching for it, we came upon fresh 

 tracks and followed them up, but up to nine o'clock 

 saw nothing. Shortly afterwards, when passing 

 a strip of long elephant grass, J. caught a sight of a 





