NO. I 



THE WHITE RHINOCEROS — HELLER 



7 



whom we were following. Hippopotamus and rhinoceros paths 

 radiated in all directions through the country, and we were soon led 

 astray and found ourselves unable to trace the Colonel and his band. 

 We then resorted to climbing trees and gazing about the landscape in 

 an endeavor to locate our chief and his party, but the grass was so 

 high and dense that they could not be seen. We blundered about for 

 several hours in the tall grass and finally stumbled upon a female 

 rhinoceros and her half-grown calf. She regarded us for a few 

 seconds and then dashed away. About two o'clock in the afternoon 

 we heard shooting, the shots being the deep boom of the powerful 

 cordite guns. We felt sure that white rhinoceroses had been found 

 by the Colonel, and that some of them had fallen to the shots we had 

 heard. There was no other game, we knew, which could have drawn 

 the Colonel's fire. We were delighted with the prospect of success so 

 early, but lamented our hard luck at having lost the party and the 

 excitement of. the chase. We returned to camp as best we could in 

 our lone condition and awaited news from the shooting party. Soon 

 a messenger appeared with the news of the shooting of two rhinoce- 

 roses by the Colonel. We at once gathered the skinners and some 

 porters together, taking their tents and mine, and food for two days, 

 as it would be necessary to spend at least that time in paring down the 

 hides thin enough to make their weight such that they could be 

 transported to camp by the porters. 



When we arrived at the spot where the rhinoceroses lay we found 

 the Colonel intensely delighted with his success. About noon a herd 

 of four rhinoceroses had been discovered resting in some tall grass. 

 No undoubted male could be seen in the herd, the animal shot, an 

 adult female, being the largest visible. All the others bolted, one be- 

 ing wounded by Kermit, but as it left no blood spoor it was supposed, 

 at the time, to have escaped. A week later it was found by Kermit 

 surrounded by great numbers of vultures who were feeding on its de- 

 cayed body. The skull and horns, however, were in perfect condition 

 and were preserved. The calf of the first female remained behind 

 with the body of its parent and was collected. It proved a very valu- 

 able specimen in illustrating juvenile characters in the bones of the 

 skull and the teeth. The female was found upon examination to still 

 have her last milk molars in use and was really an immature animal, 

 although already the parent of a half-grown calf. The dead female 

 did not impress us as an animal of extraordinary size among rhinoce- 

 roses. She had about the same bodily size as the black species, but 

 the head was extremely long with the eyes situated equidistant from 



