SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 45 



The borili eats bush alone, and the keitloa a mixed diet of 

 grass and bush. 



I could never understand the great power and strength of 

 a rhinoceros' horn. It is sessile on the bone of the snout, but 

 not part of, or attached to it ; apparently it is only kept in its 

 place by the thickness of the skin, and yet, as I mention here- 

 after, a white rhinoceros threw me and my horse clear up into 

 the air. Of course, the enormous muscles of the neck bore 

 the brunt of the lift, but the horn did not suffer in any way. 

 It is quite intelligible that the fact of it not being cemented 

 to the bone would render it less liable to fracture at the base, 

 and in itself it is tough enough, though consisting only of 

 agglutinated hair ; but I am only wondering that, attached as 

 it is, it should possess the necessary rigidity for the work it 

 does. It is occasionally used in the most determined way by 

 rhinoceroses who have mutual differences to adjust. The 

 Kafirs pare it down into hafts for their battle-axes. Of strips 

 of the hide we made horse-whips, as the Egyptians do man- 

 whips of that of the hippopotamus. 



For his bulk the rhinoceros, especially the borili, is a quick 

 mover in a hard trot and sometimes a gallop. The whole tribe 

 are heavies, taking their pleasure, if any, very sadly. The 

 hippopotamus, an even more ungainly beast, has the decency 

 to remain most of his time in the water, but the ' chukuru ' 

 thinks it behoves him to bask in the sunlight and parade his 

 ugliness. Standing motionless is the routine of his life, a 

 scrub now and then against a tree his delassement a very 

 solid, stolid brute ! 



These creatures appear to me to be out of time, to have 

 belonged to a former state of things, and to have been forgotten 

 when the change was made. Often have I sat upon a ridge 

 and looked at them as they moved solemnly and clumsily on 

 the plain below 7 , wondering how they still came to be in this 

 world, and it has occurred to me how delightful it would have 

 been to watch the pre- Adamite beasts in the same way, and 

 learn their manners which, I fear, were bad as they came 



