278 
THE STORY OF THE RHINOCEROS. 
I must kill the old bull, or be killed myself almost inevitably. He was 
not ten feet from me, and striving to pull clear from the body of the 
rhinoceros, which he had pinned into the very ground. 
I ran round the fallen elephant, and, before he could draw clear, I stood 
almost touching his temple with my rifle. 
One flash! It was enough! Struck through the brain, the old bull 
dropped instantaneously, and I was safe! 
The female elephants, panic-stricken at the noise and the flash, scattered 
in all directions in dismay. 
In five minutes I was alone! 
In Southeastern Africa both species of rhinoceros generally leave their 
lairs about four o’clock in the afternoon, or, in districts where there are many 
human beings, somewhat later.* They commence feeding in the direction of 
their drinking places, to which they travel by regular beaten paths, and arrive 
at the same somewhere about dark. If the drinking place is a mudhole they 
frequently refresh themselves with a roll, after drinking their fill. They 
then start for their favorite thorn feeding grounds, where they remain till 
daybreak, when they generally again drink. At an earlier or later hour after 
this, the time being to some extent dependent on the freedom of the district 
from human, intrusion, they retire to their sleeping places, which they reach 
at any rate before the heat of the day. The lair is always in an extremely 
sheltered and deeply-shaded spot, and so heavily do they slumber that a 
practiced stalker could almost touch them with the muzzle of a gun, unless 
they are awakened by the birds which always accompany them. 
