448 THE RHINOCEROS 



know with certainty all the species of so large a brute as the 

 rhinoceros. 



In Java, this huge pachyderm is met with in the jungles of 

 the low country, but its chief haunts are the higher forest-lands, 

 which contain many small lakes and pools, whose banks are 

 covered with high grasses. Here and there, also, the woods are 

 interspersed with dry pasture-grounds, and even in the interior 

 of the forests, numerous species of graminese are found increasing 

 in number as they rise above the level of the sea. In these 

 solitudes, which are seldom visited by man, the rhinoceros finds 

 all that it requires for food and enjoyment. As it is uncom- 

 monly shy, the traveller rarely meets it, but sometimes, while 

 threading his way through the thicket, he may chance to sur- 

 prise wild steers and rhinoceroses grazing on the brink of a 

 pool, or quietly lying in the morass. 



While the rhinoceros, with his knotty plaited skin, offers a 

 repulsive sight, the black-coated and white-legged Steer, who is 

 nearly equally large, but of much more slender form, is fully 

 entitled to the praise of savage beauty, when, suddenly starting 

 up at sight of the traveller, it rushes loudly snorting into the 

 thicket. 



The grooved paths of the rhinoceros, deeply worn into the 

 solid rock, and thus affording proof of their immemorial an- 

 tiquity, are found even on the summits of mountains above the 

 level of the sea. They are frequently used for the destruction of 

 the animal, for in the steeper places, where, on climbing up or 

 down, it is obliged to stretch out its body, so that the abdomen 

 nearly reaches the ground, the Javanese fix large sc3i:he-like 

 knives into the rock, which they cover with moss and herbage, 

 thus forcing the poor rhinoceros to commit an involuntary 

 suicide, and teaching him, though too late to profit by his 

 experience, how difficult it is to escape the cunning of man, 

 even on the mountain peak. 



