30 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



least seven feet high; it was perfectly motionless. 

 An " ant-hill," whispered Malias, for it was covered 

 with the same substance as that with which we were 

 smeared. An ant-hill, of course, I thought, and the 

 rhinoceros had rubbed against it in passing. And so 

 I nodded and prepared to move forward, but as I did 

 so the mass moved and disappeared behind the brown 

 pile of a real ant-hill. "Allah ! that was he," groaned 

 Malias. But before I could express my feelings the 

 animal reappeared on the other side of the covering 

 heap, and walked slowly away from us. Though his 

 back was well exposed, a careful aim at the base of 

 the spine produced no effect, and (the smoke hung 

 terribly) I had no time for a second shot ; nor perhaps 

 would I have risked it, for I felt sure that this time at 

 all events he would charge. However, the rhinoceros 

 went straight away, nor did we see him again for 

 many hours. For perhaps a mile we followed him 

 through virgin forest, where, though rattans and 

 creepers obstructed the path, the great trees afforded 

 a shelter from the sun. But then the rhinoceros 

 turned aside into a clearing where two seasons before 

 the Malays or the aboriginal Sakeis had felled the 

 timber to grow a crop of hill-rice. The scrub that 

 had grown up since they had reaped their harvest 

 and abandoned the place was some ten feet high, 

 and here the difficulty of making one's way was in- 

 creased a hundredfold, and moreover we were exposed 

 to the full force of the tropical sun. Bowing and 

 bending to avoid the interlacing creepers, twisting 

 and turning to free our rifles from the branches that, 

 despite our efforts, caught their projecting muzzles, 



