105 
ance of being recently destroyed. He told 
me they were two rhinoceroses that his sons 
had killed, but the day before, on their own 
land. This gave rise to a narrative re- 
specting these animals, which the good 
man related with great circumspection, and 
which appeared to me so very extraordinary, 
that I determined to record it, for the satis- 
faction of the curious. 
These creatures," said the farmer, 
are more savage, and infinitely more to 
be dreaded, than any other animal of the 
deserts. Even the lion, when he perceives 
a rhinoceros, will fly from him on the in- 
stant. I had a proof of this," said he, 
about two years ago. As I was traversing 
my lands in the morning, I perceived a lion 
enter a thicket, about the distance of half 
a mile from the place where I stood. In a 
few minutes after I observed a second, then 
a third and a fourth came ; they seemed to 
follow one another at their leisure, and, 
in less than an hour, I counted nine that 
entered the same wood. Never having seen 
so many of the same species together, I was 
