THE PINJIH RHINO. 13 



savagery that constituted its second claim to dis- 

 tinction. It was known to have killed three men on 

 three separate occasions, and in each case the attack 

 was said to have been entirely unprovoked. At an 

 inquest held on the terribly mangled body of a Malay 

 named Japaringonen, the evidence proved that two 

 men had been walking quietly along a forest path 

 when, without any warning, the great brute had 

 rushed upon them. In many other cases men had 

 been attacked, but had escaped with their lives. It 

 would turn aside for no one, so it was said ; on the 

 contrary, if met in the forest, it would either stand 

 its ground and then slowly and deliberately advance 

 in the direction from which it had been disturbed, or 

 it would charge without warning. 



It had been a terror in the Pinjih valley long 

 before the British occupation of Perak (1874), and 

 twenty-five years later, at the time of this narrative, 

 it was only in large and armed parties that the 

 wood-cutters and rattan-collectors ventured into the 

 less frequented parts of the forest. 



On more than one occasion the headman of the 

 district had organised expeditions to kill the animal, 

 and once a party of five picked Malays had met the 

 rhinoceros and had fired fifty shots at it. I heard 

 the headman tell the story once. " It was no child's 

 play," the old man said, turning fiercely on one of an 

 audience who had criticised the shooting. "If a 

 bullet felled the brute, it picked itself up at once ; 

 and if a shot missed, it charged forthwith. A hun- 

 dred men might have fired more shots, but they could 

 not have done more to kill it. And," he added with 



