A CRITICAL MOMENT 



145 



appeared to have made the shghtest impression on him, for 

 just before he died he seemed about to charge his enemy. At 

 the same moment a rhinoceros had suddenly dashed out, and 

 the Count found himself in the uncomfortable dilemma of 

 having to choose between the trunk of an elephant and the 

 horn of a rhinoceros. It was a critical moment ; but the issue 

 was fortunate. Count Teleki saw at once that the latter would 

 reach him first, so he fired at the new-comer to begin with, not 

 only making it swerve aside, but causing the elephant to turn 

 round. As the shot rang out, the sorely wounded animal stag- 

 gered away a few paces, and fell. His tusks weighed 121 and 

 128 lb. Later, our men found the dead body of the rhinoceros. 



During the afternoon a herd of female elephants with 

 young ones went down into the lake near the camp, and re- 

 mained for a long time standing still with the water up to their 

 bellies, rooting up seaweed with their trunks, from which they 

 shook the water before eating it, shoving it into their huge wide- 

 open mouths in the usual manner. Five buffaloes of the Bos caffer 

 cequinoctialis variety, and a few zebra Grevyi also came down 

 to the water towards evening. The noise made by the latter 

 when alarmed or excited is so very like the roar of a leopard 

 or a lion that we were more than once deceived by it. 



The water of the lake here tasted and smelt equally dis- 

 agreeable, and to us Europeans was simply undrinkable. One 

 of our men died in the night. 



Thursday, March 29. — To avoid a low volcanic ridge slop- 

 ing too abruptly to be easily scaled, we marched at first some 

 little distance from the lake, a chaotic medley of blocks of rock 

 making walking most arduous ; but later we went down again 

 to the water, and pressed on along the beach. A little pool 

 of thick, yellowish-green rainwater which we came across 

 was quickly emptied by our men, who were tired of the brackish 

 water of the lake, which was here again as clear as crystal. 



VOL. II. L 



