THE GREAT THICK-SKINNED ANIMALS 
167 
and resentful of interference. He usually charges a man on sight, 
and his enormous weight and strength, coupled with the two short 
horns on his snout, render him one of the most dangerous species of 
African game. The muzzle is long and somewhat flat and from this 
the two horns project, placed one behind the other and varying in 
length. Several men have been tossed on these deadly horns and by 
some miracle lived to tell the tale. All were badly crippled. The 
animal rarely fails to kill and mangle beyond recognition any hunter 
who either through an accident or nervousness misses his shot. There 
is a well known and authentic story of one terrible attack by a rhino. 
While a gang of twenty-one slaves was being taken down to the coast 
chained neck to neck, a big rhino took out of the bush and impaled the 
center man on his horn, breaking the necks of all the others by the 
suddenness of the shock. 
Rhinoceros are difficult to kill, as soft-nose bullets merely splash 
out on their thick, naked hides. Here again the big .450 express rifle 
with its steel-jacketed bullets is invaluable. The brownish-black skin, 
rugged but without folds, makes a good target, and a shot either just 
behind the foreshoulder or in the curve between the neck and shoulder 
is apt to prove fatal. 
MR. GUMMING TELLS THE FOLLOWING INTERESTING STORY OF BEING 
CHASED BY A RHINOCEROS. 
“On the 22 d, says Mr. Gumming, ordering my men to move on 
toward a fountain in the center of the plain, I rode forth with Ruyter, 
and held east through a grove of lofty and wide-spreading mimosas, 
most of which were more or less damaged by the gigantic strength of 
a troop of elephants, which had passed there about twelve months 
before. Having proceeded about two miles with large herds of game 
on every side, I observed a crusty-looking, old bull borele, or black 
rhinoceros, cocking his ears one hundred yards in advance. He had 
not observed us; and soon after he walked slowly toward us, and stood 
broadside to, eating some wait-a-bit thorns within fifty yards of me. 
I fired from my saddle, and sent a bullet in behind his shoulder, upon 
which he rushed forward about one hundred yards in tremendous con¬ 
sternation, blowing like a grampus, and then stood looking about 
