395 
CH. XIV] SQUARE-MOUTHED RHINOS 
evening and morning, usually at some bay or inlet of 
the river. In the morning they walked away from the 
water for an hour or two, until they came to a place 
which suited them for the day’s sleep. Unlike the 
ordinary rhinoceros, the square-mouthed rhinoceros 
feeds exclusively on grass. Its dung is very different; 
we only occasionally saw it deposited in heaps, according 
to the custom of its more common cousin. The big, 
sluggish beast seems fond of nosing the ant-hills of red 
earth, both with its horn and with its square muzzle ; it 
may be that it licks them for some saline substance. It 
is apparently of less solitary nature than the prehensile¬ 
lipped rhino, frequently going in parties of four or five 
or half a dozen individuals. 
We did not get an early start. Hour after hour we 
plodded on, under the burning sun, through the tall, 
tangled grass, which was often higher than our heads. 
Continually we crossed the trails of elephant and more 
rarely of rhinoceros, but the hard sun-baked earth and 
stiff, tinder-dry long grass made it a matter of extreme 
difficulty to tell if a trail was fresh, or to follow it. 
Finally, Kermit and his gun-bearer, Kassitura, dis¬ 
covered some unquestionably fresh footprints which 
those of us who were in front had passed over. Imme¬ 
diately we took the trail, Kongoni and Kassitura acting 
as trackers, while Kermit and I followed at their heels. 
Once or twice the two trackers were puzzled, but they 
were never entirely at fault; and after half an hour 
Kassitura suddenly pointed toward a thorn-tree about 
sixty yards off. Mounting a low ant-hill 1 saw rather 
dimly through the long grass a big grey 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 fore-legs, in a sitting posture, the 
