A RIDE THROUGH RHINO COUNTRY 319 



which is rare, will wheel sharply up wind and charge 

 right down on the enemy they can but dimly see. Even 

 then, nine times out of ten, a rifle ball at twenty yards 

 hitting them anywhere about the head or the neck will 

 make them swerve to one side in their charge, so they 

 are not as dangerous as they look, which is fortunate, 

 for there are few more disturbing sights than a two-ton 

 rhino coming straight at you, his ugly head and threaten- 

 ing horns held well down, and at a pace so fast that no 

 good runner could keep away from him. To the un- 

 armed man and to the native he is specially dangerous, 

 and a good many of these latter are killed by him. As such 

 an accident seems of little consequence to the herdsman 

 the news of it seldom reaches the local authorities. But 

 they will drive their herds a long way round to avoid a 

 bit of bush into which fresh tracks of rhino lead. 



Some years ago, a noted professor of biology interested 

 me greatly as he showed me the skull of a Myocene rhi- 

 noceros. In those far-away days the beast must have 

 been well able to take care of himself, even in the dan- 

 gerous company which he kept. The convolutions of 

 the brain of the Myocene rhinoceros are fine, very much 

 superior to those of his present-day descendant. The 

 sawtooth tiger and cave bear took little chance out of him. 

 He somehow so managed things, that while they disap- 

 peared he survived to see the end of his redoubtable an- 

 tagonists. Then gradually life must have become too 

 easy for him. He was big and burly and well armed; 

 other animals kept out of his way. The inevitable con- 

 sequences ensued. Competition keen and fierce had kept 

 him up. The struggle for existence had made him the 

 formidable, brainy beast that he was. When the struggle 

 was over and his brain was no longer put to its best use, 

 he began, like poor Dean Swift, "to die atop/' The 

 African fodder is as good as of yore. His hide is as thick, 



