118 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
attempt to think it out the mist came eddying thicker, and I 
was content to let it be. Presently a dim confused impression 
that I was following some animal was with me, as in a dream ; 
the power of framing and articulating a sentence returned, and 
I drowsily asked the nearest Kafir which way the trail led. He 
- pointed in the direction we were going ; his manner struck me, 
but I had had my say, and no other remark was ready. Men 
met us; among them I recognised two of my Hottentot 
drivers carrying a ‘cartel,’ or cane framework, which served as 
a swinging bedstead in my waggon. ‘ Where are you going?’ I 
asked in Dutch. They stared stupidly ; ‘Why, we heard you 
were killed by a rhinoceros!’ ‘No,’ I answered. Without a 
thought of what had occurred, my right hand fell faintly from 
the pommel of my saddle to my thigh ; with the restlessness of 
weakness I drew it up again ; a red splash of blood upon my 
cuff caught my eye. I raised my arm to see what was the 
matter ; finding no wound on it, I sought with my hand for it 
down my leg, through a rent in my trousers, and, so numbed 
was all sensation, that I actually dabbled down to the bone in 
a deep gash, eight inches long, without feeling any pain—the 
smaller horn had penetrated a foot higher up, but the wound 
was not so serious as the lower one. The limb stiffened after 
I reached the waggons, and, unable to get in and out, I made 
my bed for nearly four weeks under a bush—the rip, healing 
rapidly, covered with a rag kept constantly wet. 
The rhinoceros, as I afterwards learnt from the men who 
were with me, was running so fast when she struck me and 
lifted me so high, that.she had shot ahead before I fell, and, 
on their shouting, passed on without stopping. The horns, as is 
generally the case in this variety, were of nearly an equal length, 
so that one to a certain extent checked the penetration of the 
other—as it would be more difficult to drive a double-spiked 
nail than a single one. The bone of the thigh, however, 
providentially turned the foremost horn, or it must have passed 
close to, even if it had not cut, the femoral artery. 
