EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
168 
and also return to the charge. One friend instanced 
a personal uncomfortable adventure in which he was 
chevied by a rhino for nearly half-an-hour, and only 
just managed to escape. The conclusion I therefore 
arrive at is, that at certain seasons, like many other 
wild animals, including our Scotch red-deer, they are 
in that condition of “must” which renders them, for 
the time, vicious and vindictive, their normal condition 
being the exact opposite. 
Most of the men got royally drunk on our return 
to Taveta, and made night hideous by howling to the 
strum of their tomtoms ; but this, we knew, was an 
invariable rule whenever they came into headquarters, 
and a licence with which any interference, on our part, 
would have been unwise. 
