With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



In the rainy season you will scarcely come across a 

 single rhinoceros on the mountain-plateau ; they are then 

 scattered about the velt. But in the: dry season it is 

 almost impossible to penetrate into the thickets of that 

 hill country, as the description of this stalking expedition 

 of mine shows very plainly. I should never have dreamt 

 that it was such a veritable rhinoceros-preserve ; but for 

 well-read zoologists this information will not be in the 

 least surprising, for they are all conversant with the 

 descriptions of Thomson, Count Teleki, Chanler, Donald- 

 son-Smith, and, to close the list, von Ho'hnel (who was 

 attacked by a rhinoceros and badly injured). These and 

 many other travellers came across almost incredible: 

 numbers of rhinoceroses in certain districts. Everything 

 here recounted by me of the Donje-Erok applies to all 

 the corresponding mountain-ranges of the Masai-Xyika 

 and Ndasekera, and the Uonje-Krok la Matumbato is 

 by no means especially rich in " faros." 



How quickly, though, these conditions may alter is 

 most strikingly exhibited by the fact that so keen an 

 observer as Professor Yolkens never came in contact with 

 a rhinoceros, in a stay of almost two years on Kilimanjaro, 

 although his botanical excursions took him all round the 

 mountain. 1 Some years before his time the first com- 

 mandant of Moshi, Mr. Khz, had killed two-horned 

 rhinoceroses by scores. And since then the Government 

 Askaris had snared this great wild beast for years in their 

 hunting expeditions. 



1 Yolkens, Her Kiliniandjaro. 

 626 



