THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 403 
rather dimly through the long grass a big gray bulk, near 
the foot of the tree; it was a rhinoceros lying asleep on its 
side, looking like an enormous pig. It heard something 
and raised itself on its forelegs, in a sitting posture, the 
big ears thrown forward. I fired for the chest, and the 
heavy Holland bullet knocked it clean off its feet. Squeal¬ 
ing loudly it rose again, but it was clearly done for, and 
it never got ten yards from where it had been lying. 
At the shot four other rhino rose. One bolted to the 
right, two others ran to the left. Firing through the grass 
Kermit wounded a bull and followed it for a long distance, 
but could not overtake it; ten days later,* however, he 
found the carcass, and saved the skull and horns. Mean¬ 
while I killed a calf, which was needed for the museum; 
the rhino I had already shot was a full-grown cow, doubtless 
the calf’s mother. As the rhino rose I was struck by their 
likeness to the picture of the white rhino in Cornwallis 
Harris’s folio of the big game of South Africa seventy years 
ago. They were totally different in look from the com¬ 
mon rhino, seeming to stand higher and to be shorter in 
proportion to their height, while the hump and the huge, 
ungainly, square-mouthed head added to the dissimilar¬ 
ity. The common rhino is in color a very dark slate gray; 
these were a rather lighter slate gray; but this was proba¬ 
bly a mere individual peculiarity, for the best observers 
say that they are of the same hue. The muzzle is broad 
and square, and the upper lip without a vestige of the 
curved, prehensile development which makes the upper lip 
of a common rhino look like the hook of a turtle’s beak. 
* Kermit on this occasion was using the double-barrelled rifle which had been 
most kindly lent him for the trip by Mr. John Jay White, of New York. 
