RHINOCEROS 
201 
CH. IX] 
with these sluggish creatures, we made our preparations 
in leisurely style, and with scant regard to the animal 
itself. Moreover we did not intend to kill any rhino 
unless its horns were out of the common. I first 
stalked and shot a buck Roberts' gazelle with a good 
head. Then we off-saddled the horses and sat down to 
lunch under a huge thorn-tree, which stood by itself, 
lonely and beautiful, and offered a shelter from the 
blazing sun. The game was grazing on every side, 
and I kept thinking of all the life of the wilderness, 
and of its many tragedies, which the great tree must 
have witnessed during the centuries since it was a 
seedling. 
Lunch over, I looked to the loading of the heavy 
rifle, and we started toward the rhinos, well to leeward. 
But the wind shifted every way; and suddenly my 
gun-bearers called my attention to the rhinos, a quarter 
of a mile off, saying, “ He charging, he charging.” 
Sure enough, they had caught our wind, and were 
rushing toward us. I jumped off the horse and studied 
the oncoming beasts through my field-glass ; but head 
on it was hard to tell about the horns. However, the 
wind shifted again, and when two hundred yards off* 
they lost our scent, and turned to one side, tails in the 
air, heads tossing, evidently much excited. They were 
a large cow and a young heifer, nearly two-thirds grown. 
As they trotted sideways I could see the cows horns, 
and her doom was sealed ; for they were of good length, 
and the hind one (it proved to be two feet long) was 
slightly longer than the stouter front one; it was a 
specimen which the Museum needed. 
So after them we trudged over the brown plain. But 
they were uneasy, and kept trotting and walking. They 
never saw us with their dull eyes ; but a herd of wilde- 
