RHINOCEROS HUNT 
131 
had I got within twenty yards of where he disappeared, when 
a tremendous crash in the bush warned me that the beast, 
evidently in waiting, had turned and was coming straight for me 
again. It was just a second before he appeared, bounding like 
a great indiarubber ball. Waiting as before, I threw myself side¬ 
ways and rather forward this time, to anticipate a sweep of the 
horn the beast was preparing to make, while fetching his head 
over from the position the natural movement of his huge 
body had put it in. Again I let him have it behind the 
shoulder as he passed on into the thicket on the other side. 
It was a regular game of quartering across, for, as I went 
after him, out he came again; and now, much cooler, I felt as 
if having a great game with the beast for pretty high stakes, 
and, doing as before, landed him another bullet in the same 
place, and gave him one behind as he went into the bush. 
Once more he charged to get another pill, and then, weakening, 
remained stubbornly in the bush, where I had to go cautiously 
after him. He was standing wavering by a tree, with the blood 
pouring from his nose, and, as I fired, fled into the open, but 
came down with a great crash, stone dead, after going fifty yards. 
We found, on cutting him up, that none of the bullets he had 
received broadside from the Swinburne-Henry had gone clean 
through; they were all lodged under the skin, on the opposite 
side, slightly altered in shape by the pressure undergone in 
their passage through the carcass. The one in the head 
had gone clean out, and the one from behind had raked its 
way up into the fore part of the chest. It is surprising what 
an amount of lead these beasts will carry before compelled to 
give in. 
There was great rejoicing in camp over the meat, and the 
babel at night from the uatives induced us to shift our camp 
a hundred yards off to be out of the way. The scene, as viewed 
from our camp, presented quite a ghastly appearance, as the 
great quantities of red meat, hung up in strips to dry, covered 
many branches, reflecting the camp firelight with a sickening 
colour, not lessened by the occasional whiffs we got of burning 
