RHINOCEROS AND THEIR HABITAT 87 



and lost, and I should have known nothing of it, had the men 

 not quarrelled over the spoils, and one run back and told the 

 Deputy Commissioner, but the man was over our frontier 

 before he could be overtaken and seized. 



The lesser rhinoceros is distinguished by being somewhat 

 shorter in height and their shields being less prominent, and 

 the skins at times are covered with square angular tubercles. 

 This animal extends throughout Assam, down Sylhet, the 

 Garrow Hills, Tipperah, Chittagong, Arrakan, and Burma to 

 Malaya, and probably into Yunan and the western provinces 

 of China. The Burmese assert that it devours fire. 



The two-horned rhinoceros extends from Chittagong down- 

 wards. It is not known further north. Its skin is as smooth 

 as a buffalo's ; the anterior horn is fairly long, the posterior 

 generally a mere stump. I do not see why they should not 

 be utilized, as they are easily domesticated. A dhooby in 

 Gowhatty used to take his clothes from the wash about on 

 one (R. indicus, R. unicornus], but I think he sold it to an 

 Afghan, who was one of Jamrach's agents. 



The variety obtained by Mr. Hood had tasselated ears. It 

 got bogged in trying to cross a river, and was secured by 

 means of Keddah elephants. 



Doctor Mason asserts that the larger single-horned rhino- 

 ceros (R. indicus} has been caught in Arrakan, and that he 

 has also seen it along the banks of the Tenasserim river. 

 The Burmese have told me the same, but Blyth declared that 

 they had mistaken the smaller Sondaicus for the Indicus. 



The bigoted Hindoos store their horns in their Namghurs, 

 the point downwards, the base forming a kind of bowl in 

 which they pour water and use as a charm. The Chinese also 

 put a fictitious value on them. Knowing how valuable they 

 were, Major Cock 1 bought up a lot of the white African 

 rhinoceros horns, which are at times 3 feet long, which he 

 saw for sale in the Bazaar in Calcutta, and sent them to 

 Becher in Assam for sale, but the natives would not look at 

 them, not believing that they were what they professed to be ! 



1 A rare good sportsman ; afterwards killed in one of the fights in the 

 Naga country. 



