African Game Trails 
275 
game hunter in the remote wilderness. He 
penetrates to all the out-of-the-way nooks 
and corners of the earth; he is schooled to 
the performance of very hard work, to the 
endurance of fatigue and hardship, to en¬ 
countering all kinds of risks, and to grap¬ 
pling with every conceivable emergency. 
In consequence he is exceedingly compe¬ 
tent, resourceful, and self-reliant, and the 
man of all others to trust in a tight place. 
Around this camp there were no ravens 
or crows; but multitudes of kites, almost as 
tame as sparrows, circled among the tents, 
uttering their wailing cries, and lit on the 
little trees near by or waddled about on 
the ground near the cook fires. Numer¬ 
ous vultures, many marabou storks, and a 
single fish eagle, came to the carcasses set 
for them outside the camp by Loring; and 
he took pictures of them. The handsome 
fish eagle looked altogether out of place 
among the foul carrion-feeding throng; on 
the ground the vultures made way for him 
respectfully enough, but they resented his 
presence, and now and then two or three 
would unite to mob him while on the wing. 
We wished for another cow rhino, so as 
to have a bull and a cow both for the Na¬ 
tional Museum at Washington, and for the 
American Museum in New York; and 
Kermit was to shoot this. Accordingly he 
and I started off early one morning with 
Grogan—a man of about twenty-five, a good 
hunter and a capital fellow, with whom by 
this time we were great friends. It was 
much like our other hunts. We tramped 
through high grass across a big, swampy 
plain or broad valley between low rises of 
ground, until, on the opposite side, we 
struck a by-this-time familiar landmark, 
two tall royal palms, the only ones for some 
miles around. Here we turned into a broad 
elephant and rhinoceros path, worn deep 
and smooth by the generations of huge feet 
that had tramped it; for it led from the dry 
inland to a favorite drinking place on the 
Nile. Along this we walked until Kassi- 
tura made out the trail of two rhino crossing 
it at right angles. They were evidently 
feeding and seeking a noonday resting 
place; in this country the square-mouthed 
rhinoceros live on the grassy flats, sparsely 
covered with small thorn-trees, and only go 
into the high reeds on their way to drink. 
With Kassitura and Kongoni in the lead 
we followed the fresh trail for a mile or so, 
until we saw our quarry. The stupid beasts 
had smelt us, but were trotting to and fro 
in a state of indecision and excitement, tails 
twisting and ears cocked, uncertain what to 
do. At first we thought they were a bull 
and a small cow; but they proved to be a 
big cow with good horns, and a calf which 
was nearly full grown. The wind and sun 
were both exactly wrong, so Kermit could 
not take any photos; and accordingly he 
shot the cow behind the shoulder. Away 
both animals went, Kermit tearing along 
behind, while Grogan and I followed. 
After a sharp run of a mile and a half Ker¬ 
mit overtook them, and brought down the 
cow. The younger one then trotted threat¬ 
eningly toward him. He let it get within 
ten yards, trying to scare it; as it kept com¬ 
ing on, and could of course easily kill him, 
he then fired into its face, to one side, so as 
to avoid inflicting a serious injury, and, turn¬ 
ing, off. it went at a gallop. When I came 
up the cow had raised itself on its forelegs, 
and he was taking its picture. It had been 
wallowing, and its whole body was covered 
with dry caked mud. It was exactly the 
color of the common rhino, but a little 
larger than any cow of the latter that we had 
killed. We at once sent for Heller—who 
had been working without intermission 
since we struck the Lado, and liked it—and 
waited by the body until he appeared, in 
mid-afternoon. 
Here in the Lado we were in a wild, un¬ 
inhabited country, and for meat we de¬ 
pended entirely on our rifles; nor was there 
any difficulty in obtaining all we needed. 
We only shot for meat, or for Museum 
specimens—all the Museum specimens be¬ 
ing used for food too—and as the naturalists 
were as busy as they well could be, we 
found that, except when we were after 
rhinoceros, it was not necessary to hunt for 
more than half a day or thereabouts. On 
one of these hunts, on which he shot a cou¬ 
ple of buck, Kermit also killed a monitor 
lizard, and a crocodile ten feet long; it 
was a female, and contained fifty-two eggs, 
which, when scrambled, we ate and found 
good. 
The morning after Kermit killed his cow 
rhino he and Grogan went off for the day to 
see if they could not get some live rhino 
photos. Cuninghame started to join Heller 
at the temporary camp which we had made 
beside the dead rhino, in order to help him 
