SECOND EXPEDITION TO EAST AFRICA 197 



the nostril into the brain, and the animal fell 

 dead on the spot. This may have been a 

 determined charge, and it was certainly a very 

 unpleasant adventure, which was calculated to 

 make Gimlette sceptical of the correctness of the 

 views which have been above advanced. It is, 

 however, possible that the animal was merely 

 rushing madly up- wind. A surprise rush of this 

 kind, if made from your immediate vicinity, is 

 obviously more difficult to avoid than a rush 

 made from some distance after the animal has 

 been located. 



On another occasion Gimlette and his gun- 

 bearers had to throw themselves off a track into 

 the bush to avoid the rush up-wind of two 

 rhinos. 



There will always be the risk of an accident 

 with a rhino, and every possible precaution 

 ought to be observed when you are in the proximity 

 of one ; but, as already said, I believe that a 

 really vicious rhino is rarely met with. 



I saw on one occasion, on our return journey 

 from the Lorian, a rhino which might fairly have 

 been described as white. It was a small animal 

 and had small horns, and I did not shoot it; but 

 by this time I had acquired some of Tagarru's 

 contempt for a rhino, and stood close to this 

 animal examining it so close that Saasita thought 

 I had not seen it, as it was in high grass, and came 

 up, rather excitedly, to point it out. The animal 

 was evidently an albino, and I am sorry now 

 that I did not shoot it as a curiosity. I saw some 

 very light-coloured water-buck at the Lorian ; 

 and there is a head in the Kensington Natural 



