STALKING IN THE NYIKA 



Two of my men find him and carry him back to the 

 camp. 



But I want to reach the crest of the mountain spur. 

 The heat of the sun has already baked the stones and 

 rocks of the steep slopes which we now climb, sometimes 

 crawling on all fours, annoying the geckoes (lizards) 

 on our path, which can easily run up on smooth and 

 perpendicular rocks as their toes are provided with 

 adhesive disks. The higher we climb the fresher is the 

 vegetation. Nearing the bush-grown region, I notice 

 excrements which denote the presence of dassies, those 

 pygmy ungulates which are, strange to say, closely re- 

 lated to the monstrous rhinoceros. 



The rhinoceros, the second terrestrial mammal in size, 

 which for many hundred thousand years has held its own 

 in the struggle for existence, is doomed to extermination 

 within an appreciable time by the hand of man, armed 

 with the poisoned arrow and the destructive small- 

 caliber rifle, while the little dassy has a good chance to 

 outlive even man. They multiply like rabbits and they 

 are hard to hunt. At the slightest alarm they run into 

 their hiding-places among inaccessible rocks or under 

 the ground. When wounded they are lost to the hunter 

 if they escape into their holes. The average hunter 

 leaves them alone ; only the collector will patiently hunt 

 them to provide museums with specimens. The das- 

 sies live on a friendly footing with the klipspringers ; 

 both warn each other of approaching danger. Among 



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