120 THE TWO-HORNED RHINOCEROS. 



Agageers (hunters) then joined us : and after we had 

 searched about an hour in the very thickest part of 

 the wood, one of them rushed out with great vio- 

 lence, crossing the plain towards a wood of canes 

 that was about two miles distant. But though he 

 ran, or rather trotted with surprising speed, con- 

 sidering his bulk, he was, in a very little time, 

 transfixed with thirty or forty javelins ; which so 

 confounded him, that he left his purpose of going 

 to the wood, and ran into a deep hole, ditch, or 

 ravine, a cid de sac, without outlet, breaking above 

 a dozen of the javelins as he entered. Here we 

 thought he was caught as in a trap, for he had 

 scarcely room to turn ; when a servant, who had a 

 p-un, standing directly over him, fired at his head^ 

 and the animal fell immediately, to all appearance 

 dead. All those on foot now jumped in with their 

 knives to cut him up; but they had scarcely begun, 

 when the animal recovered so far as to rise upon 

 his knees : happy then was the man that escaped 

 first ; and had not one of the Agageers, who was 

 himself engaged in the ravine, cut the sinew of the 

 hind leg as he was retreating, there would have, 

 been a very sorrowful account of the foot-hunters 

 that day. 



" After having dispatched him, I was curious to 

 see what wound the shot had given, which had 

 operated so violently upon so huge an animal ; and 

 I doubted not it was in the brain. But it had 

 struck no wliere but upon the point of the foremost 

 horn, of which it had carried off above an inch : 

 and this occasioned a concussion that had stunned 



