African Game Trails 
279 
After giving up the quest for the lion 
Grogan and I, with our gunbearers, spent 
the day walking over the great dry flats of 
burnt grass land and sparse, withered for¬ 
est. The heat grew intense as the sun rose 
higher and higher. Hour after hour we 
plodded on across vast level stretches, or up 
or down inclines so slight as hardly to be 
noticeable. The black dust of the burn 
rose in puffs beneath our feet; and now 
and then we saw dust devils, violent little 
whirlwinds, which darted right and left, 
raising to a height of many feet gray funnels 
of ashes and withered leaves. In places the 
coarse grass had half resisted the flames, 
and rose above our heads. Here and there 
bleached skulls of elephant and rhino, long 
dead, showed white against the charred 
surface of the soil. Everywhere, crossing 
and recrossing one another, were game 
trails, some slightly marked, others broad 
and hard, and beaten deep into the soil by 
the feet of the giant creatures that had 
trodden them for ages. The elephants had 
been the chief road makers; but the rhinoc¬ 
eros had travelled their trails, and also buf¬ 
falo and buck. 
There were elephant about, but only 
cows and calves, and an occasional bull 
with very small tusks. Of rhinoceros, all 
square-mouthed, we saw nine, none carry¬ 
ing horns which made them worth shooting. 
The first one I saw was in long grass. 
My attention was attracted by a row of 
white objects moving at some speed through 
the top of the grass. It took a second look 
before I made out that they were cow her¬ 
ons perched on the back of a rhino. This 
proved to be a bull, which joined a cow and 
a calf. None had decent horns, and we 
plodded on. Soon we came to the trail of 
two others, and after a couple of miles’ 
tracking Kongoni pointed to two gray bulks 
lying down under a tree. I walked cau¬ 
tiously to within thirty yards. They heard 
something, and up rose the two pig-like 
blinking creatures, who gradually became 
aware of my presence, and retreated a few 
steps at a time, dull curiosity continually 
overcoming an uneasiness which never grew 
into fear. Tossing their stumpy-horned 
heads, and twisting their tails into tight 
knots, they ambled briskly from side to side, 
and were ten minutes in getting to a dis¬ 
tance of a hundred yards. Then our shenzi 
guide mentioned that there were other 
rhinos close by, and we walked off to in¬ 
spect them. In three hundred yards we 
came on them, a cow and a well-grown 
calf. Sixty yards from them was an ant-hill 
with little trees on it. From this we looked 
at them until some sound or other must 
have made them uneasy, for up they got. 
The young one seemed to have rather 
keener suspicions, although no more sense, 
than its mother, and after a while grew so 
restless that it persuaded the cow to go off 
with it. But the still air gave no hint of 
our whereabouts, and they walked straight 
toward us. I did not wish to have to shoot 
one, and so when they were within thirty 
yards we raised a shout and away they can¬ 
tered, heads tossing and tails twisting. 
Three hours later we saw another cow 
and calf. By this time it was half-past 
three in the afternoon, and the two animals 
had risen from their noonday rest and were 
grazing busily, the great clumsy heads 
sweeping the ground. Watching them 
forty yards off it was some time before the 
cow raised her head high enough for me to 
see that her horns were not good. Then 
they became suspicious, and the cow stood 
motionless for several minutes, her head 
held low. We moved quietly back, and at 
last they either dimly saw us, or heard us, 
and stood looking toward us, their big ears 
cocked forward. At this moment we 
stumbled on a rhino skull, bleached, but in 
such good preservation that we knew Heller 
would like it; and we loaded it on the por¬ 
ters that had followed us. All the time we 
were thus engaged the two rhinos, only a 
hundred yards off, were intently gazing in 
our direction, with foolish and bewildered 
solemnity; and there we left them, survi¬ 
vors from a long vanished world, standing 
alone in the parched desolation of the wil¬ 
derness. 
On another day Kermit saw ten rhino, 
none with more than ordinary horns. Five 
of them were in one party, and were much 
agitated by the approach of the men; they 
ran to and fro, their tails twisted into the 
usual pig-like curl, and from sheer nervous 
stupidity bade fair at one time to force the 
hunters to fire in self-defence. Finally, 
however, they all ran off. In the case of a 
couple of others a curious incident hap¬ 
pened. When alarmed they failed to make 
out where the danger lay, and after running 
away a short distance they returned to a 
