WILD MAN AND WILD BEAST IN AFRICA 



27 



The elephant is the most intelli- 

 gent of game. The rhinoceroses 

 were not as interesting as the ele- 

 phants, because they were not as 

 intelligent. After we had com- 

 pleted our collection of rhinoce- 

 roses it became quite a problem 

 how to avoid them and get the 

 other things we wanted. It is 

 amusing to realize how soon we 

 got to accepting our difficulties 

 with rhinos as a matter of course. 

 Here in civilization, if you asked 

 a man to kindly go down and 

 scare off a rhinoceros for you, the 

 man would look at you with a cer- 

 tain surprise ; in Africa it was a 

 matter-of-course incident. When 

 near a rhino there is always a 

 chance that he will charge, whether 

 through stupidity, or fright, or 

 anger. The trouble is that one 

 never knows whether he will or 

 will not charge home. It often 

 happens that after he has come to 

 a distance of about 25 yards he 

 will wheel and run off ; but, not 

 being a mind-reader, a man cannot 

 tell whether a particular rhino 

 does or does not intend to charge 

 home. Cuninghame, who was 

 handling the safari for us, would 

 now and then send me off to 

 scare away rhinos who were too near 

 the line of march, and I would perform 

 the task with gingerly caution. Once 

 Cuninghame and I were hunting buffalo 

 on the Guaso Nairo. We were on the 

 trail of a herd, when suddenly Cuning- 

 hame stopped, and, turning around with 

 his air of patient dejection, said: "Oh, 

 Mr. Roosevelt, look at that rhino." I 

 answered, "Yes, look at him." He con- 

 tinued, "I do not want to lose this spoor. 

 Would you mind going down and fright- 

 ening him off? But do not make much 

 noise, because we do not want to frighten 

 the buffalo." So I strolled down, trying 

 to make up my mind how much noise I 

 could make that would frighten the rhino 

 and not the buffalo. I struck just about 

 the happy medium ; and, after meditating 

 a little, with his ears and tail . up, the 



He 

 back, 

 Ugan 

 Charl 



THE SAFARI DRUMMER 



would go on ahead to camp and then walk 

 drumming to let the men know camp was near : 

 da. Photo by Kermit Roosevelt. Copyright by 

 es Scribner's Sons. 



rhino trotted away in zigzags until it 

 was safe for us to pass. About half a 

 mile on we sighted the buffalo and started 

 to stalk them. We were just finishing 

 the stalk when there arose a yelling like 

 that of lost souls behind us, and away 

 went the buffalo. Back we went, to find 

 that one of the porters, when we halted 

 to drive off the rhino, had lost his knife ; 

 and he and two others took advantage of 

 our stalking the buffalo to run back to 

 see if they could find the knife. By that 

 time the rhino had returned. Evidently 

 he thought that his dignity had been 

 offended, and he went for the porters 

 and tossed one of them. So we had to 

 give up the buffalo for the time being and 

 go back and give first aid to the injured 

 porter. 



The animal that I found most interest- 



