I 
FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA 
19 
short way off. Being bent on “biltong” for exchanging with 
the natives for meal, etc., I thought it a pity to lose this 
chance ; so I exchanged my single Metford, which it was then 
my custom always to carry myself, for the double .577 with 
my gunbearer behind me and ran up to a little bush quite 
near the rhino. 
Although very bad-sighted, these animals often seem 
to get some inkling of one’s proximity even when the wind 
is right, either from the tick birds which generally accompany 
them or, in their absence, by some other means—perhaps 
hearing. This one knew I was there and began to shift 
about uneasily; but as soon as I got up to the bush which 
screened my approach I took the first chance he gave me 
of a side shot and before he had made up his mind to 
decamp. He immediately executed what I call the rhino’s 
death-waltz—a performance they very commonly go through 
on getting a fatal shot. It is a curious habit, this dying dance, 
and consists in spinning round and round like a top in one 
place with a rocking-horse motion before starting off at a 
gallop, which generally is only a short one, to be arrested after 
a hundred yards or so by death. I imagine the cause of this 
strange evolution is the animal’s endeavour to find out the 
cause of the sudden wound it has received—much on the same 
principle as a dog chases his tail when anything irritates that 
organ. Mine passed close to me after his dance, but I felt 
so sure he was done that I refrained from giving him the 
second barrel. 
On another occasion, however, I lost a rhino through 
placing faith in the “ waltz ” being a sign of immediately 
impending death. I had given him a shot in about the right 
place ; but as he was somewhat inclined diagonally towards 
me, the bullet must have gone too far back. He waltzed 
round several times with only an ant-heap, about as tall as a 
man and not much broader, between me and him, he being on 
one side of it while I dodged him, as his dance sometimes 
