Rhinoceros Shooting. 79 



fifty yards when a cow rhinoceros, followed by a young 

 one, charged J., whose elephant swerved, but her 

 rider fired two shots and turned his assailant towards 

 me. I also gave her two shots; she then ran about fifty 

 yards and fell dead. Going further in, I found myself 

 in the midst of a whole herd of rhinoceros. There were 

 probably a dozen or more in the grass, and five or six 

 came at me open-mouthed, uttering their diabolical 

 noises, but the old mucknah I was on never moved. 

 I emptied my battery of five double guns and rifles, 

 reloaded, firing first at one and then at another, 

 always selecting the nearest. I knocked over two, 

 but a third did not succumb until I caught her with 

 the last barrel behind the ear. It was an exciting 

 five minutes, and but for the steadiness of my 

 " hathee " he must have come to grief. 



My mahout, before I had reloaded, now wanted 

 to push on after the wounded beasts and I had to 

 threaten him with a broken head before he would 

 desist. I have never seen, before or since, so many 

 rhinoceros collected together, and so pugnacious. The 

 survivors entered a tangled brake and got off till the 

 next day, when the native shikaries picked up three 

 dead and appropriated their flesh and horns, but 

 none of the latter w T ere large. Going back, a three- 

 parts-grown rhinoceros charged and chased J's. 

 elephant for some way and struck it twice, but failed 

 to inflict any but superficial wounds. J. at last 

 dropped it dead, but he himself was a sufferer, being 

 much cut about and bruised from the tossing that he 

 received in the howdah. The next day we crossed the 

 Gatee Nullah, saw a rhinoceros, but it kept at a safe 

 distance. Shortly afterwards we saw another, as it 



