56 Great and Small Game of Africa 



not sounded the death-knell to the white and black rhinoceros alike in 

 all the country that came within reach of the Matabele native hunters. At 

 this time, however, the Manyami River was looked upon as the boundary 

 of Lo Bengula's dominions to the north-east, and none of his people dared 

 to hunt in small parties much to the east of the Lower Umfuli River ; and 

 it thus came to pass that the white rhinoceroses inhabiting a small tract 

 of country between the Angwa and the Manyami, though they were 

 occasionally killed by the natives living in the surrounding districts, were 

 not so systematically slaughtered as their brethren to the west of the 

 Umfuli River. In 1886 two Boer hunters, Karl Weyand and Jan Engel- 

 brecht, shot ten white rhinoceroses in this little tract of country, and five 

 more were killed during the same year by some Fingo hunters who had 

 been long resident in Matabeleland. A few were still left, and in the 

 following year I saw the tracks of two or three of them, but did not come 

 across any of the animals themselves, though one of my waggon-drivers 

 shot a big bull. 



It had always been one of my ambitions to preserve a complete 

 specimen of the white rhinoceros for our national collection at South 

 Kensington, and finding the fresh tracks of three of these animals — a bull, 

 a cow, and a calf — when on my way from Matabeleland to the Manyami 

 River in 1882, I followed them up with the intention of killing them 

 and preserving their skins and skeletons. I shot the bull and the cow and 

 let the calf go, but as neither of them had good horns, although they were 

 full grown, I decided not to preserve them, but to try and get better 

 specimens, so I only kept the skull and head skin of the bull, which are 

 now in the South African Museum at Cape Town. 



I did not come across any more white rhinoceroses that season, and was 

 not able either then or in 1883, 1885, or 1887 (in all of which years I was 

 camped at no great distance from the country which I knew was their last 

 refuge) to afford the time and expense of making a special expedition after 



