OX SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 



10.7 



great size at some little distance from him. We left our 

 horses in a dip of the ground and began the approach; 

 I cannot say that we stalked him, for the approach was too 

 easy. The wind blew from him to us, and a rhino's eyesight 

 is dull. Thirty yards from where he stood was a bush four 

 or five feet high, and though it was so thin that we could 



Skinning the eland 

 from a photograph by Edmund Heller 



distinctly see him through the leaves, it shielded us from 

 the vision of his small, piglike eyes as we advanced toward 

 it, stooping and in single file, I leading. The big beast 

 stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sun- 

 light; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over 

 from the world's past, from the days when the beasts of 

 the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so 

 cunning of brain and hand as to master them. So little 

 did he dream of our presence that when we were a hundred 

 yards off he actually lay down. 



