In Wildest Africa -* 



come on the market. So it is, too, with the slaughtering 

 of whales and seals for the purposes of commerce. It 

 is with them as with so many men — we shall begin to 

 hear of them when they are dead. 



But to come back to our rhinoceroses. Not long 

 before sunset I saw another animal grazing peacefully on 

 a ridge just below me, apparently finding the short grass 

 growing there entirely to his taste. The monstrous 

 outlines of the great beast munching away in among 

 the jagged rocks stood out most strikingly in the red 

 glow of the setting sun. It would have been no good 

 to me to shoot him, for all my thoughts were set on 

 finding a satisfactory camping-place for the night. Soon 

 afterwards I came suddenly upon two others right in my 

 path — a cow with a young one very nearly full grown. 

 In a moment my men, who were a little behind, had 

 skedaddled behind a ridge of rocks. I myself just 

 managed to spring aside in time to escape the cow, 

 putting a great boulder between us. Round she came 

 after me, and I realised as never before the degree to 

 which a man is handicapped by his boots in attempting 

 thus to dodge an animal. It was a narrow escape, but 

 in this case also a well-aimed bullet did the trick. We 

 left the body where it lay, intending to come back next 

 morning for the horns. Some minutes later, after scurrying 

 downhill for a few hundred paces as quickly as we could, 

 so as to avoid being overtaken by the night, we met 

 three other rhinoceroses which evidently had not heard 

 my shot ring out. They were standing on a grassy 

 knoll in the midst of the valley which we had now reached, 



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