126 LARGE GAME. CHAP. n. 



certainly should not have gone out that day. Soon after 

 I had done so, however, we saw some eland running across 

 us, and hoping that they might halt again before long, 

 we started in chase, and had run perhaps a couple of miles 

 when a flock of rhinoceros-birds rose out of a clump ot 

 bush just in front, and I saw the snout of a rhinoceros 

 protruding from it. 



The birds had alarmed it, and it was only by rushing 

 in that I got a slanting shot at it as it trotted off through 

 the open in full view, and as it took no notice, and I had 

 not heard the crack of the ball, I fancied I had missed, and 

 not only did not hurry myself to reload, but allowed the 

 Kaffir who accompanied me to go after it alone, until I 

 heard it squealing, sure proof that it was mortally wounded, 

 and then a shot. 



Hastening to the spot, I found it standing, screaming 

 and swaying its body to and fro, while its nearly full-grown 

 young one was quartering about trying to get our wind, 

 and the native was observing the whole proceedings from 

 the top of a tree, at the bottom of which was his gun. I 

 at once fired at the young one, making it charge past and 

 go straight off, and then I went up to its mother, which 

 had now fallen, and found that it was an umkombe tovote. 

 My ball had penetrated from close in behind the shoulder 

 through the head of the heart. The native had missed it, 

 and had so frightened a number of Amaswazi who hap- 

 pened to be in that direction by the whistling of the bullet, 

 that they had taken refuge in trees, but from its body we 

 cut out four old balls, which had seemingly been in it for 

 years. Its horns, which were unusually good, measured 

 twenty-four inches for the front one, twenty for the back, 



