NO. 1 THE WHITE RHINOCEROS — HELLER 43 



with its horn and with its square muzzle ; it may be that it licks them 

 for some saline substance. It is apparently of less solitary nature than 

 the prehensile-lipped rhino, frequently going in parties of four or 

 five or half a dozen individuals. 



" We did not get an early start. Hour after hour we plodded on, 

 under the burning sun, through the tall, tangled grass, which was 

 often higher than our heads. Continually we crossed the trails of 

 elephant and more rarely of rhinoceros, but the hard, sunbaked earth 

 and stiff, tinder-dry long grass made it a matter of extreme difficulty 

 to tell if a trail was fresh, or to follow it. Finally, Kermit and his 

 gun-bearer, Kassitura, discovered some unquestionably fresh foot- 

 prints which those of us who were in front had passed over. Imme- 

 diately we took the trail, Kongoni and Kassitura acting as trackers, 

 while Kermit and I followed at their heels. Once or twice the two 

 trackers were puzzled, but they were never entirely at fault ; and after 

 half an hour Kassitura suddenly pointed toward a thorn tree about 

 sixty yards off. Mounting a low ant-hill I saw rather dimly through 

 the long grass a big gray bulk, near the foot of the tree ; it was a rhi- 

 noceros lying asleep on its side, looking like an enormous pig. It 

 heard something and raised itself on its forelegs, in a sitting posture, 

 the big ears thrown forward. I fired for the chest, and the heavy 

 Holland bullet knocked it clean off its feet. Squealing loudly it rose 

 again, but it was clearly done for, and it never got ten yards from 

 where it had been lying. 



" At the shot four other rhinos rose. One bolted to the right, two 

 others ran to the left. Firing through the grass Kermit wounded a 

 bull and followed it for a long distance, but could not overtake it ; ten 

 days later, however, he found the carcass, and saved the skull and 

 horns. Meanwhile I killed a calf, which was needed for the museum ; 

 the rhino I had already shot was a full-grown cow, doubtless the calf's 

 mother. As the rhino rose I was struck by their likeness to the 

 picture of the white rhino in Cornwallis Harris's folio of the big 

 game of South Africa seventy years ago. They were totally different 

 in look from the common rhino, seeming to stand higher and to be 

 shorter in proportion to their height, while the hump and the huge, 

 ungainly square-mouthed head added to the dissimilarity. The com- 

 mon rhino is in color a very dark slate gray; these were a rather 

 lighter slate gray; but this was probably a mere individual peculiarity, 

 for the best observers say that they are of the same hue. The muzzle 

 is broad and square, and the upper lip without a vestige of the curved, 

 prehensile development which makes the upper lip of a common 



