RHINOCEROS-HUNTING 



trees in the centre of the plain, with the exception of the gun- 

 bearer, who followed me with the second rifle. The last glimpse 

 I had of these rhinos they were feeding peacefully away from 

 us, but now, on peering through the scanty foliage of the bushes, 

 I was disagreeably surprised to discover both huge beasts side 

 by side and head on, regarding me with much interest, forty 

 yards distant. 



Fearing a sudden combined charge in the open, I hurriedly 

 knelt down and fired both barrels into the larger of the two 

 rhinos, which happened to be the cow. At the first report this 

 animal swayed forward slightly, and then, at the second barrel, 

 sank into a sitting position, and commenced painfully dragging 

 itself across the plain toward the edge of the thick bush. I 

 discovered later that the heavy bullet had missed the shoulder, 

 but had travelled diagonally through the quartering beast, 

 smashing the opposite hip-bone into fragments. I was pre- 

 vented from finishing off the wounded animal by the actions 

 of the second rhino, w^hich, with head and tail erect in the air, 

 continually circled its wounded mate at a clumsy gallop. 

 Occasionally it would head straight for me, and when I was 

 about to shoot in self-defence it would stop abruptly in a cloud 

 of dust, gaze at me for a few moments, and then dash madly 

 across the plain. Eventually the wounded rhino reached the 

 edge of the thick bush. The bull, after beating around the 

 thicket for a quarter of an hour, trotted out across the plain 

 until it was swallowed up in the bush of the opposite side. 



Entering the thicket on the blood-spattered track of the 

 game, I had no trouble in locating the wounded beast by its 

 continual and piercing squealing. Many times I had heard the 

 familiar snort of the alarmed rhino, but other than that this 

 was the first sound I had heard, and it was the squeal of the pig 

 magnified many times. Through a maze of thorn-branches I 

 could indistinctly see the outline of the rhino sitting on its 

 haunches in the midst of a dense thicket; and not knowing at 



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