320 AFRICA SPEAKS 



On our side of the Nile lives the white rhino — that 

 rare and strange beast left over from the long ago, 

 from the age when aU the animals of the earth were 

 weird of form and armed for battle. It was with a 

 feehng that I had been transported back into the age 

 of flying reptiles and saber-toothed tigers that I fol- 

 lowed the lithe negro who strode in front of me, as the 

 little party womid its way through the tall grass and 

 over a landscape that fitted perfectly into my mental 

 picture of the prehistoric earth. 



No matter in what country you hunt rhino, it is 

 always the same story of weary miles under a scorch- 

 ing sun, for all members of this family seem to pick 

 the hardest and most trying country for their haunts. 

 Mile after mile we walked, and soon I was dripping 

 with perspiration; but just as I felt incHned to call a 

 short halt, the boy ahead stopped short and pointed 

 to a clump of small trees. Coming up to him, I made 

 out two fight-colored shapes standing in the shade. 

 They moved sfightly as I looked, thus proving that they 

 were not ant hills, like the many "rhino" we had al- 

 ready seen. This cow and calf must have gotten a 

 whiff of us, for they were very shy and gave us a hard 

 half-hour's work in attempting to photograph them, 

 the whole effort netting me one graflex negative and 

 no motion pictures at all, or at least none worth 

 bragging about. 



When they shifted and got into the open, so that a 

 good view was had of them, we appreciated for the 

 first time the tremendous bulk of these animals. The 

 cow loomed over the calf fike an ocean finer over a tug- 

 boat, and the latter was large enough to attract atten- 

 tion in any company, even though it was only half 



