A RIDE THROUGH RHINO COUNTRY 307 



Here, as I said, it is the unexpected that happens. Sud- 

 denly we come on two rhinos feeding among the brush. 

 As we climb a ridge we are close to them before either party 

 is aware of the other. I have been scribbling notes as I 

 ride, but the note-book is now hurriedly pocketed. Ugly 

 brutes these rhinos surely are, and dangerous as they are 

 ugly. Now a sporting license issued by the Government of 

 the Protectorate only permits the holder to kill two rhinos. 

 Personally I think this a mistake. All rhinos should be 

 shot at sight. They are a common nuisance, too common 

 hereabout; useless for food, and especially dangerous to 

 unarmed people. The natives dread them. I have in 

 another part of the country already taken half my allowance 

 of rhinos, and as neither of these has the one redeeming 

 feature allowed to a rhino, a good horn, they are safe so far 

 as I am concerned; so there is nothing to be done but to 

 go around them, which I do, my syce with the memory of the 

 buffalo column still in his soul, crowding up close on the 

 guns with the led mule. As we make a circle we draw off 

 to one side and pass close to a winding water-course, dry in 

 the hot weather, but holding running-water now, which 

 gurgles among tall grass and thorn bushes, its sides rocky 

 and steep. A little ridge runs from the hill we had to turn 

 down, in order to go around the rhino, to the edge of the 

 water course, and shuts off our view of a sharp bend in its 

 stream. The gulley makes another bend to meet this ridge, 

 so, as our heads rise above it, there lies a little tongue- 

 shaped promontory before us, and we stand on high ground 

 at its centre. A few yards away is a whole family of ostriches, 

 cock bird and hen and eight half-grown chicks (the chicks 

 would stand over five feet high). For a moment dire con- 

 fusion reigns, for the ostrich is exceedingly wary, and when 

 the old birds have a brood they are the very most careful of 

 all wild creatures; and if the Syrian ostriches, as the Good 

 Book says, left their eggs to take their chances in the sand, 



