-+> The Minds of Animals 



and knowledge stored up in their brains, to recognise in 

 detail the topography of the velt, and to find their way 

 with ease about the surrounding country. 



Herein lies the explanation of the fact that I was able 

 very frequently to take up a rhinoceros track which led me 

 in the driest season in a direct easterly course after four 

 hours to a dried-up ditch which led due south to a small 

 pool which still held water. I have noticed this kind 

 of thing hundreds of times in the vicinity of the velt, 

 where only intermittent showers of rain fill the pools 

 temporarily with water. How helplessly and hopelessly 

 lost does the educated man feel himself to be in that 

 .wilderness! In what a masterly and wonderful manner 

 does the rhinoceros find his way ! 



The friendship between my rhinoceros and the two 

 goats was founded on an absolutely unselfish basis. It 

 arose from purely spiritual needs. Of this I am positive. 



Many other animals in this distant black country were 

 to us a real source of enjoyment and consolation. Take, 

 for example, my young elephant, who loved me with child- 

 like simplicity, till I unfortunately lost him for want of 

 a foster-mother : also my tame baboon, who used to be 

 almost mad with joy when he saw me, a mere speck 

 on the horizon, returning to the camp from one of my 

 excursions his sight is infinitely keener than ours. 

 From earliest times we have heard tell of an unusually 

 wise bird that our ancestors nicknamed the " philosopher." 

 This is the marabou-stork, specimens of which I have 

 come across whose wisdom and fondness for human 

 companionship would scarcely be credited. 



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