A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



sections of the country. We often found the animals quite far 

 from water in the dense thorn-bush, but they were also con- 

 tinually in view on the elevated grassy plains which constitute 

 a large portion of the country. They seem to linger around the 

 bases of the occasional rocky kopjes which extended up out of 

 the bush, and freshly burnt country was always covered with 

 intersecting trails of the three-toed circular tracks of this heavy 

 animal. The wart-hog and the rhino are about the only two 

 beasts which inhabit the burnt veldt until the short, green 

 grass commences to sprout out of the blackened ground, and 

 the grazing herds of game again move into the country. Other 

 game seems to pay little attention to these slow-moving beasts, 

 and I have noticed rhinos feeding among and surrounded by 

 grazing zebra, hartebeest, oryx, waterbuck, and gazelle. The 

 huge and substantial slate-colored mass of the rhino shows up 

 in especially striking contrast with the surrounding group of 

 diminutive, dainty, and brilliantly marked Thomson's gazelles. 



The eye of the rhino is small, and its sight proportionately 

 poor. I have heard from many sources that a man can ap- 

 proach to within forty yards of one of these beasts in the open 

 without being discovered. I have never been anxious to verify 

 this personally, as I have seen them spot and investigate mov- 

 ing objects many times this distance off. The rhino's ear, and 

 especially its scent, is remarkably acute, and the least whiff of 

 tainted breeze will either send these huge beasts off at a clumsy 

 frightened trot or cause a slow and suspicious investigation. 



Regarding the pugnacity of the rhino, every African hunter 

 seems to have a different version ; but while a number of white 

 and black men have undoubtedly been killed, and a greater 

 number have been forced to seek safety in flight or in trees, 

 my opinion is that the majority of charging rhinos are beasts 

 thrown into a panic and blindly seeking safety in the wrong 

 direction. Except in rare cases, when once they have passed, 

 rhinos blunder ahead until they are swallowed up in the bush 



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