XXII 



THE RHINOCEROS (continued) 



AT FIRST the traveller is pleased and curious 

 over rhinoceros. After he has seen and en- 

 countered eight or ten, he begins to look upon them 

 as an unmitigated nuisance. By the time he has 

 done a week in thick rhino-infested scrub he gets 

 fairly to hating them. 



They are bad enough in the open plains, where 

 they can be seen and avoided, but in the tall grass 

 or the scrub they are a continuous anxiety. No 

 cover seems small enough to reveal them. Often 

 they will stand or lie absolutely immobile until you 

 are within a very short distance, and then will out- 

 rageously break out. They are, in spite of their 

 clumsy build, as quick and active as polo ponies, 

 and are the only beasts I know of capable of leaping 

 into full speed ahead from a recumbent position. 

 In thorn scrub they are the worst, for there, no 

 matter how alert the traveller may hold himself, 

 he is likely to come around a bush smack on one. 

 And a dozen times a day the throat-stopping, abrupt 



