238 The White Rhinoceros in Zululand 
When one is following them through thick bush there is no doubt 
that they distinctly hear the sounds of breaking sticks, and the 
scraping of bushes on one’s clothes, and yet with only ordinary caution 
they can be closely approached under these conditions. This is 
probably because such movements and sounds are of common 
occurrence in these places, where other creatures than themselves are 
on the move. 
It has always appeared to me that they, in common with other wild 
game, are able to differentiate between natural, or usual, sounds and 
those which are unusual. For instance, if one is following them up 
as above described and sticks are unavoidably broken under-foot, or 
bushes noisily displaced, the animal when met with will be more or 
less alert, its ears cocking at different angles and seldom still for five 
seconds together, but if no unusual sound reaches him he will not 
decamp. You may tread on sticks or scrape past bushes in quite 
noisy fashion without causing the animal to become other than mildly 
alert, but if you are so careless as to carry a knife slung at belt and 
to let it come in contact with your rifle, or to allow a twig to jerk 
back and rattle against your camera-case well, /. simws will await no 
further developments, but move off, and you can then sit down and 
smoke, the while you reflect upon the paradoxical intelligence of the 
unintelligent rhinoceros. 
‘Supposing such unusual sounds are above indicated occur when you 
have already approached so closely in the thick bush that the animal 
has become dimly aware of your presence, he will not bolt at once, but, 
if facing away from you, he swings round actively enough, staring 
hard in your direction, in which position, unless you are armed with 
some very differently constructed camera to that which I use, with its 
complexity of movements, there is very little hope of making an 
exposure. 
It is supposed that you are perhaps 20 feet distant from the animal 
(at any further distance he would not be visible in the surrounding 
bush) that is, close enough for your every movement to be clearly 
discernible, thus precluding all possibility of manipulating the camera, 
in addition to which the chances are that although the great beast is 
almost at arm’s length from you, all you will see will be two or three 
patches of grey, a flicking ear and a dark mass which looks like a tree 
stem, but which you know is the anterior horn, the whole harmonising 
so completely with the surrounding grey shade, that even these are 
most difficult to make out. 
