78 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



rhinoceros and fired. It began to spin round and 

 round, and to emit the sounds elephants dread so 

 much, and to our astonishment, from a patch of long 

 grass close at hand, fully a dozen more rhinoceros joined 

 in chorus ! I never heard such a pandemonium in 

 my life ! If the inmates of a lunatic asylum and a 

 dozen menageries had been let loose, and intermingled 

 the row could not have been more deafening ! Not 

 an elephant with us would stir a step forward, the grass 

 was dense and high, and so full of the brutes in a state 

 of frenzy that I did not like to force our mounts 

 forward. After the row ceased, they were willing to 

 enter the cover, but I was afraid of getting them cut. 

 We tried to set the grass on fire, but the dew was still 

 on it, and it would not burn. 



When at breakfast under a tree close by, a mahout, 

 who had been collecting brushwood, ran up, saying 

 that there was a rhinoceros, as big as an elephant, feed- 

 ing in the open close by. We left our meal unfinished, 

 mounted our " koonkies " and went towards the spot 

 indicated. There was a nullah close by, and had we 

 gone on foot along its bed (which for a wonder was 

 free of jungle), we could have come within a few paces 

 of the brute ; but instead of following this obvious 

 course, thinking the animal would take no notice of 

 us, we approached it on our elephants. When we 

 were about sixty yards off, the foe saw us, turned 

 round quickly, rushed down the nullah bank, and 

 though we saluted it with a couple of barrels each, 

 it got clean off. We then returned to our meal. 



Finding afterwards that we could not fire the 

 game's stronghold, we formed line, and pushed our 

 way in very slowly and cautiously. We had not gone 



