400 RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO [ch. xiv 
thither and was criss-crossed by others ; but Kongoni 
and Kassitura gradually untangled the maze, found 
where the beasts had drank at a small pool that morn¬ 
ing, and then led us to where they were lying asleep 
under some thorn-trees. It was about eleven o’clock. 
As the bull rose, Kermit gave him a fatal shot with his 
beloved Winchester. He galloped full speed toward us, 
not charging, but in a mad panic of terror and bewilder¬ 
ment, and with a bullet from the Holland I brought 
him down in his tracks only a few yards away. The 
cow went off at a gallop. The calf, a big creature, half 
grown, hung about for some time, and came up quite 
close, but was finally frightened away by shouting and 
hand-clapping. Some cow herons were round these 
rhino, and the head and body of the bull looked as if it 
had been splashed with whitewash. 
It was an old bull, with a short, stubby, worn-down 
horn. It was probably no heavier than a big ordinary 
rhino bull such as we had shot on the Sotik, and its 
horns were no larger, and the front and rear ones were 
of the same proportions relatively to each other. But 
the misshapen head was much larger, and the height 
seemed greater because of the curious hump. This 
fleshy hump is not over the high dorsal vertebrae, but 
just forward of them, on the neck itself, and has no 
connection with the spinal column. The square-mouthed 
rhinoceros of South Africa is always described as being 
very much bigger than the common prehensile-lipped 
African rhinoceros, and as carrying much longer horns. 
But the square-mouthed rhinos we saw and killed in 
the Lado did not differ from the common kind in size 
and horn development as much as we had been led to 
expect; although on an average they were undoubtedly 
larger, and with bigger horns, yet there was in both 
