WOUND A RHINOCEROS 173 



The scene was changed in a moment. An ugly, small- 

 eyed, piggish, horny-looking-beast reared itself up out of 

 the wallow in a sitting posture, only exposing its head and 

 shoulders, and blinked at me stupidly for a few seconds in 

 an undecided manner, as if debating in its own mind what 

 manner of animal I was. I did not give it time to consider 

 long, but jumped from my stooping attitude and aimed 

 hurriedly at the huge head, firing both barrels in quick suc- 

 cession. A tremendous commotion in the wallow immediately 

 ensued, followed by sounds like the drawing of corks from 

 very large bottles, the sound being caused by the rhinoceros 

 pulling its feet out of the clayey soil as it rushed out of the 

 wallow and bolted, in full flight, down the hill-side, through 

 cane-brake and bamboo, carrying everything before it. At 

 first I was greatly disappointed, being under the impression 

 that I had made a clean miss. 



Moung Hpe, who was also greatly disgusted at my shoot- 

 ing, came up with a very long face, taking it for granted that 

 .1 had missed, and said, " Thakiri, thakin, thee-tokan-now ka- 

 bedaw ma ya bu kyan hue dine ma twe hnine bu ma, hman 

 bu tin de " (Sir, sir, you will never have such luck again ; 

 it is not every day that you see a rhinoceros, I think you 

 have missed it). But I had not missed, for after following 

 up the tracks for about 100 yards, we found, much to my 

 delight, blood on either side of the track, which proved 

 beyond a doubt that one of my bullets had gone clean 

 through the animal's head. 



It was simply marvellous to think that any animal could 

 have received such a shock without staggering or showing any 

 signs of having been hit, and then make off, down a steep 

 hill-side through dense undergrowth, like an express train. 



We had not been an hour on the trail before Moung Hpe 

 pointed out the rhino to me, lying down on its stomach 

 amongst some bushes, breathing heavily. I could just see 

 a dirty yellow patch, which I immediately fired at. 



On receiving the shot it jumped up and made off again. 

 We came up with him after going about 300 yards further ; 

 it was standing broadside on, and I put in a right and left 

 behind the shoulder. I was obliged to use my smooth-bore, 



