124 LARGE GAME. CHAP. n. 



heads that bordered the path, until I, having allowed the 

 first three to pass me, opened fire on the last, and, stag- 

 gering him with my first barrel, brought him on to his 

 knees with the second. 



The instant I had fired the whole line took it up, and 

 the irregular volley that succeeded lasted for fully a 

 minute. The rhinoceroses, severally wounded in half a 

 dozen places, broke into a gallop, and seemed going to 

 make their escape, when one, a yearling, suddenly halted 

 and commenced squealing, and its mother, enraged by the 

 sound, wheeled on the spot, and came charging down upon 

 us. The scatter she caused was complete ; no one had a 

 breech-loader, and therefore no one was loaded but myself, 

 so, while I made the best of my way to a tree, I kept my 

 eye on her, and seeing her pressing one of the water- 

 bearers whom she had singled out, I pulled up short and 

 fired, attracting her attention to myself. I gave her the 

 other barrel as she came on, puffing and snorting, and then 

 made for a tree ; but there was no necessity for doing so, 

 as she broke down immediately afterwards on one of her 

 fore-legs which had been pierced by a bullet, but had not 

 hitherto given way, and which placed her completely at 

 our mercy. Seeing this the hunters descended from the 

 trees, and for some minutes there was a general ringing 

 of iron ramrods on ill-fitting bullets, while I fired at, and 

 tried to finish, the one I had at first brought to the ground, 

 but, though I tried every spot I knew of, taking the most 

 deliberate aim, it was not till the sixth bullet that it fairly 

 fell, having hitherto been plunging about, trying to rise 

 from its knees. A far greater number of shots were fired 

 by the hunters at the cow and yearling before they killed 



