60 Great and Small Game of Africa 



white rhinoceros was the easiest to approach unobserved, if the wind was 

 favourable and there were no rhinoceros birds on him to warn him of 

 danger. Apart from any obstruction of vision caused by the position 

 of the horns, his eyesight was very bad, and I remember to have walked 

 to within 30 or 40 yards of white rhinoceroses upon several occa- 

 sions without attracting their attention, although apparently in full view 

 of them. 



They, however, always seemed to me to be quick of hearing, as the 

 breaking of a small twig or any other slight noise immediately attracted 

 their attention. Their sense of smell too, as with the black rhinoceros and 

 all other animals, was acute. When accompanied by rhinoceros birds, they 

 could not be approached very closely, as these latter always gave the alarm 

 by screeching and running about their heads in an agitated manner. All 

 wild animals in South Africa know that these demonstrations indicate the 

 approach of human beings, and I have seen many a rhinoceros of both 

 the white and black species, as well as buffaloes and other animals, on 

 receiving the well-understood warning, first show unmistakable signs of 

 uneasiness and then run off, without having ascertained the nature of the 

 danger which actually threatened them. When white rhinoceroses got 

 the wind of a human being, even although he was several hundred yards 

 distant, they always at once decamped. When alarmed, they used to start 

 off at a trot, which was so swift, that I never saw a man on foot able to 

 keep up with it. If pursued on horseback, however, they would break 

 from their trot into a gallop, and maintain a speed for a considerable 

 distance, perfectly astonishing in animals of their huge size and ungainly 

 appearance. A white rhinoceros was always an easier animal to shoot from 

 horseback than one of the black species, as the latter animal was not only 

 swifter, but was in the habit of constantly swerving as one ranged alongside, 

 and never offering anything but his hind-quarters to be fired at, whilst 

 one could gallop a little wide of and in front of a white rhinoceros, and 



