CHAP. ii. RHINOCEROS. 103 



of this species without finding that there has been a lion 

 about lately. 



However, I went on, the sole precaution I could take 

 being silence, while I was often passing within a foot of a 

 mass of tangle that, for aught I knew, might contain a 

 rhinoceros or a lion. The feeling that one is passing 

 thickets from which dangerous game may be watching you, 

 especially when it is more than probable that it is so, and 

 when one can do nothing whatever to mitigate the danger, 

 is by no means a pleasant one, and before I had got far in 

 I was wishing myself well out of it ; indeed, I might have 

 turned had I not thought it almost as dangerous to do so 

 as to advance. In ten minutes I was in the centre of this 

 patch, and still the spoor led me on until I began to hope 

 that it would pass through, and that I should not have to 

 tackle the most dangerous of African animals, rendered, if 

 it is possible, more ill-tempered than usual by its wounds, 

 by myself, and in the heart of its stronghold, when it 

 made a sudden turn to the right, taking me past a dense 

 wall of creepers. 



I hardly know what tempted me to go and peer 

 through them, gently passing my hand in, and moving 

 them so that I could see a little, for I had not done 

 it before, though I had passed dozens of similar places ; 

 but so it was, and there, scarcely a yard away, lay the 

 great brute, its head turned to the entrance, opposite 

 me, where it had gone in, and its side and hind-quarters 

 towards me. It was no time for hesitation. I first glanced 

 round for a tree, put the muzzle of the gun to the hole 

 through which I had been looking, and, holding it at 

 arm's-length, pulled the trigger, and then, nervous with 



