With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



Rifle full-cocked, I await their onset, while my people seek 

 covert right and left behind the tree-trunks. But I rejoice 

 to say that no attack is made. Crashing, stumbling, and 

 snorting, we can hear them for quite a long while making 

 their way down the mountain-side, and then, with more 

 caution than ever, I set forward again. 



But does fate intend me to come right on top of 

 rhinoceroses every two hours, or will the animals have 

 remarked our proximity and made their escape before we 

 reach their resting-places ? Climbing one of the highest 

 rocks, I give myself up for half an hour to the joy of 

 admiring the glorious, far-stretching prospect of the vast 

 desert. 



When we move on a little way towards the second 

 peak, we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of such an 

 indescribably dense bush that we are unable to see more 

 than a few feet in front of us. Keeping our bearings 

 with difficulty, we wind along through the thicket. 

 Just as I am creeping on my hands and knees through 

 a maze of branches, there comes a snorting to right 

 and left of me, quite close, and the branches crackle 

 and break. An enormous rhinoceros is coming at me ! 

 With unheard-of good luck I succeed in sending a bullet 

 almost straight into its ear, killing the huge beast on 

 the spot. At the same moment two other rhinoceroses 

 come thundering by, quite close to me ; they suddenly, 

 however, stand stock still in the thicket, snorting violently, 

 on the alert. 



A few yards to the left the first leviathan lies in 

 the throes of death. I hold the gun directed straight 



616 



