THE BUFFALO 



Sasa across to pick up the effects we had left on the 

 opposite ridge, while I myself struck directly across 

 the flat toward camp. 



I had plunged ahead thus, for two or three hun- 

 dred yards, when I was brought up short by the 

 violent snort of a rhinoceros just off the starboard 

 bow. He was very close, but I was unable to locate 

 him in the dusk. A cautious retreat and change of 

 course cleared me from him, and I was about to start 

 on again full speed when once more I was halted by 

 another rhinoceros, this time dead ahead. Attempt- 

 ing to back away from him, I aroused another in my 

 rear; and as though this were not enough a fourth 

 opened up to the left. 



It was absolutely impossible to see anything ten 

 yards aw^ay unless it happened to be silhouetted 

 against the sky. I backed cautiously toward a little 

 bush, with a vague idea of having something to dodge 

 around. As the old hunter said when, unarmed, he 

 met the bear, "Anything, even a newspaper, would 

 have come handy." To my great joy I backed against 

 a conical ant hill four or five feet high. This I 

 ascended and began anti-rhino demonstrations. I 

 had no time to fool with rhinos, any^^ay. I wanted 

 to get through that jungle before the leopards left 

 their family circles. So I hurled clods of earth and 

 opprobrious shouts and epithets in the four directions 



357 



