1894.] WHITE RHINOCEEOS IN MASHON ALAND. 333 



Mr. Arthur Eyre, succeeded in shooting an old cow ; she had a small 

 calf with her, and we captured it with the intention of bringing it 

 to England. In spite of our greatest care, however, it died on the 

 ninth day. I wrote an account of this to the ' Eield,' and received 

 subsequently a commission from a great English collector to shoot a 

 specimen for him. In the first few days of June 1893 I started alone 

 from Salisbury and, by the greatest of good luck, found some spoor 

 in North-east Mashonaland before the end of July. I then formed 

 a permanent camp, and began to work up and trace the spoor. Eor 

 five days from sunrise till dark I patrolled and quartered every yard 

 of country for a good number of miles, and on the sixth day I 

 saw — though so far off that they appeared like dark specks — two 

 of the huge brutes I was searching for. The first thing to do of 

 course was to get below the wind, as when they were first sighted 

 the wind blew directly from me to them. In an hour's time I was 

 crawling towards them through the fringe of bush that lay about 

 150 to 170 yards below the open position they had chosen for 

 their midday siesta. I thought they might give me some trouble, 

 so I took my coloured boy with me — he could shoot rather 

 well and carried a single 12-bore rifle. As I crawled on my 

 stomach towards them with the greatest possible care, I saw one 

 of them had become suspicious and had got on to his feet, evidently 

 much disturbed. When this happened I flattened myself low r er if 

 possible into the sharp grass stubble and black ash — this latter was 

 the result of a devastating grass fire which had occurred a few 

 weeks before. It seemed hours before this very painful crawl 

 brought me to the small tuft of dry grass I was making for. After 

 waiting for some time I was relieved to see the other brute stand 

 up ; I whispered a few words to the boy, and then kneeling right 

 up quickly we lifted the rifles. The larger bull stood on the left and 

 almost facing me, the other stood broadside on ; I did not wish to 

 break any great bones, so I did not fire at the point of the 

 shoulder — which would have been the usual shot under the 

 circumstances — but put the bullet from the 10-bore "Paradox" 

 between the first two ribs and into the lung : as the huge brute 

 spun round, I put the second shot behind the ribs ; it travelled 

 forwards and also, I found afterwards, reached the lungs. The 

 boy fired his rifle almost simultaneously with my first shot, and 

 as the animals went off in opposite directions we jumped up and 

 followed them at our best pace. For over a mile the old bull went 

 like a steam-engine ; he gradually, however, settled down, and I 

 came up aud gave him two more bullets from behind : this helped 

 him on again, but not for more than half a mile, when he slackened 

 again. I soon ran up to him and found him beginning to stagger, for 

 all this time he had been throwing blood by the gallon from his 

 nostrils. One more shot finished him, and as he sank clown with 

 a kind of sob the buffalo-birds (Buphaya) left him aud with shrill 

 notes of alarm they flew up and, circling for a few minutes over us, 

 disappeared in the direction that the other rhinoceros had taken. 

 I was completely exhausted by the severe run, and taking out my 



