THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
a foot less than the standing height often attributed to white rhinoceroses 
in South Africa. Having myself measured only one white rhinoceros in 
South Africa, I have in some of my writings acquiesced in Harris’s state- 
ment that these animals stood 6 ft. 6 in.; but as the only animal I actually 
measured — a very large male — only reached a height of six feet at the 
shoulder, I have always privately doubted the accuracy of the very much 
greater measurements which have been recorded. From information 
given me by Mr Roosevelt I have, however, no doubt that in South Africa 
the white rhinoceros was, on the average, a bigger animal, carrying finer 
horns, than the northern representatives of the stock from which all the 
white rhinoceroses in Africa were originally descended. The better feeding 
and cooler climate that the white rhinoceroses which had ranged down 
to South Africa undoubtedly enjoyed, are quite sufficient, I imagine, 
to account for this difference in bodily size, and in the development of the 
horns. One very remarkable point about the white rhinoceros in South 
Africa — a point which I think was first recorded by Gordon Cumming — 
was the way in which when moving a small calf always preceded its 
mother, which appeared to guide it by pressing with the point of its horn 
on the little creature’s rump. On several occasions I have galloped after a 
cow white rhinoceros with a small calf, and have been astonished at the 
precision with which on any sudden change of pace, from a trot to a gallop 
or vice versa, the relative positions of the two animals were always 
exactly maintained. During the rainy season in South Africa white 
rhinoceroses became excessively fat, and often retained their good con- 
dition till far on in the dry season, and their meat was, I think, held in 
higher estimation than that of any other animal in the country. It was 
strong dark red meat like beef, but with a peculiar flavour of its own. 
White rhinoceros hump was considered a great delicacy by old South 
African hunters. This hump was situated not on the shoulders, but on the 
back of the neck, in front of the shoulders, and was always cooked in its 
skin in a hole in the ground. Although a few accidents have occurred in 
the course of the extermination of the white rhinoceros in South Africa, 
they have been very few and far between, and I have never heard of a 
human being having been killed by one of these animals. Speaking 
generally, they were most inoffensive creatures, and there was no sport 
or excitement in shooting them. Of all the very considerable number I 
encountered I am glad to say I killed very few, and these only when I 
required food for myself and my native followers. As all the white 
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