94 After Big Game in Central Africa 



do this ? Through instinct of self-preservation and 

 because he knows that these traces left behind him 

 make known his presence ? I am totally ignorant. 

 The fact remains that he never neglects to perform 

 this little act. Sometimes he does not do it at the 

 very time, he walks about in the neighbourhood ; 

 but he returns invariably to the place where he has 

 left these traces and never leaves it until he has 

 crushed them. 1 



As the rhinoceros cannot be far away, I consider it 

 prudent to be on my guard. I believe, in fact, that 

 the rhinoceros is the only animal which rushes at man 

 without provocation. According to certain hunters, 

 it only " seems to rush at you " : it does not rush at 

 you, they say: "it tries simply to run away in any 

 direction in its fright caused by your smell." That is 

 playing with words. Nobody has ever been able to 

 analyse the sensations of a rhinoceros at the psycho- 

 logical moment when he charges ; but I have noticed 

 several times that when a rhinoceros has scented you, 

 he beats the bush around you like a pointer, and 

 makes for you as soon as he has got wind of you. 

 During our stay at Niarugvve Camp a rhinoceros 

 charged us twice consecutively. Sometimes also, it 

 is true, the animal has gone off without charging ; but 

 that is the exception. 2 



We shall have to return to the habits of this strange 

 animal, and those of other denizens of the forest ; but 



1 The natives say that the animal is so vicious that it even 

 gets into a rage with its own dung. 



2 That was the opinion of Sir Samuel Baker. See The Nile 

 Tributaries of Abyssinia, small edition, p. 246. 



