346 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
" Bismillahi rakmani rahim " in corrupt Arabic, and 
the latter, a Christian, said his grace in his own 
tongue, and then they drank. 
They had no sooner quenched their thirst than all 
turned to me with eyes almost starting from their 
sockets, and eagerly enquired, " Did you not see those 
rhinoceroses close to the path as you came down 
here?" I had seen nothing. With my tongue 
parched, my whole system burning with fever, my 
sight growing hazy, yet occasionally catching glimpses 
of the gleaming water, I hurried forward, thinking 
only of saving myself and my party. 
Ai ! ai ! ai !" exclaimed the men, we thought it 
was all over with you. Why, you passed before the 
noses of a pair of rhinoceroses, as near to them as you 
are to us ! Ai ! ai ! and you did not see them 1 Well ! 
well ! it is all over now, and you are safe. But we 
trembled for you ! pausing till you had passed, when 
we raised a cry, and the brutes ran off." 
These terrific-looking animals seem to be most 
harmless creatures if they are left alone. Perhaps we 
pigmies are beneath the notice of their colossal 
majesties. Yet the Wasuahili say, — 
" Uki ona Pera, 
Uki ona muhi— kuera." 
(If you meet a rhino, 
And you see a tree — climb-o.) 
In the course of an hour our whole party had 
arrived, except Juma and Kiringe, the former having 
fallen helplessly to the earth, and the latter having 
remained to keep him company till succour could 
be sent. Mange, Kiringe's brother, and Mungoma, 
