92 
RHINO AND GIRAFFES [ch. iv 
horses, because there was no water where we were 
going, and furthermore we did not like to expose them 
to a possible attack by lions. The march out by moon¬ 
light was good fun, for though I had been out all day, 
I had been riding, not walking, and so was not tired. 
A hundred porters went with us so as to enable us to 
do the work quickly and bring back to camp the skins 
and all the meat needed, and these porters carried 
water, food for breakfast, and what little was necessary 
for a one-night camp. We tramped along in single file 
under the moonlight, up and down the hills, and through 
the scattered thorn forest. Kermit and Medlicott went 
first, and struck such a pace that after an hour we had 
to halt them so as to let the tail end of the file of 
porters catch up. Then Captain Slatter and I set a 
more decorous pace, keeping the porters closed up in 
line behind us. In another hour we began to go down 
a long slope toward a pin-point of light in the distance, 
which we knew was the fire by the rhinoceros. The 
porters, like the big children they were, felt in high 
feather, and began to chant to an accompaniment of 
whistling and horn-blowing as we tramped through the 
dry grass which was flooded with silver by the moon, 
now high in the heavens. 
As soon as we reached the rhino, Heller with his 
Wakamba skinners pushed forward the three-quarters of 
a mile to the eland, returning after midnight with the 
skin and all the best parts of the meat. 
Around the dead rhino the scene was lit up both by 
the moon and by the flicker of the fires. The porters 
made their camp under a small tree a dozen rods to one 
side of the carcass, building a low circular fence of 
branches, on which they hung their bright-coloured 
blankets, two or three big fires blazing to keep off 
