CHAPTER XVI. 
THE AFRICAN RHINOCEROS. 
The devilish iron engine wrought 
In deepest hell, and framed by furie’s skill, 
With windy nitre and quick sulphur fraught, “" 
And rammed with bullets round, ordained to kill. be 
Spenser's Faery Queene, 
“Ir you draw your beast in an emblem,” observes Peacham quaintly enough, “show a landscape of the country natural to 
the beast.” In accordance with which sound and excellent counsel, although not directly dealing in emblems, I have striven to 
display annexed the scenery “natural” to the smaller, and more common of the two species of Rhinoceros that infest Southern 
Africa. He is a swinish, cross-grained, ill-favoured, wallowing brute, with a hide like a ‘rasp, an impudent cock of the chin, 
a roguish leer from out the corner of his eye, a mud-begrimed exterior, and a necklace of ticks and horse-flies! Nineteen 
times out, of twenty shall you see the crusty old fellow standing listlessly in the society of Gnoos, Quaggas, and Hartebeests, 
upon a plain bounded by a low range of azure hills, and dotted over with mokaala trees, distributed with park-like regularity. 
Iu imitation of the pendulum of a Dutch clock, his tail is swinging mechanically from side to side—and the odds are fifty 
to oue that, having eaten his fill, he is at that very moment in the enjoyment of perfect idleness, under the shade cast by one 
of the many thatched cities of the Loria which are within the scope of vision. Indolent and slovenly, he would appear, 
notwithstanding his enormous bulk, to be a slow and dainty feeder, tasting few of the many shrubs which he approaches, or has 
even touched with his tortoise-like nose, as though designing to browse thereon; and whilst exclusively subsisting upon brash- 
wood and ‘the smaller branches of dwarf trees—he is to be found in none but wooded districts, his traces beeome there, 
abundantly apparent, from his accumulated heaps of ordure, wherein he delights to roll, from his singular trefoil-shaped spor, 
and from the extensive mutilations of his favourite bushes. 
Whether from a limited sphere of vision, arising from the extraordinary minuteness of the eyes, which, resembling a 
pig's in expression, are placed nearer to the nose than in most other animals—or whether from an overweening confidence in its 
own powers—the Bhinocopos will generally suffer itself to be approached within even a few yards, before condescending to take 
the smallest heed of the foe who is diligently plotting its destruction. At length, pricking its pointed ears at some unusual sound, 
it listens with a ludicrous assumption of shrewdness —its elevated snont, armed with a double ploughshare, imparting an inimi- 
table sepreenictr of contempt. In an instant the dull and yaeant physiognomy has become lighted up with the essence of all 
that is spiteful and malevolent. Twinkling its hoggish eyes, and turning its shapeless head imquiringly from side to side — 
elevating its double chin, and restlessly rolling its bemired carcase from side to side—it trots forward a few paces with the 
viyacity and mincing gait of a French dancing master—wheeling presently to the right about to reconnoitre the enemy. Then 
uttering @ great blast or snort of defiance, and lowering its armed muzzle almost to the ground, granting and trumpeting, on 
comes the villain with reckless impetuosity, displaying a degree of activity but ill according with such unwieldy proportions. 
Once roused from his apparent isthaney: throwing down the gauntlet, he charges with blind fury to the onslaught, aided no 
less by the length of his stride than by the propelling impetus of his body. Yet his rush is invariably a straight one, and 
his awkward structure preventing him from turning with facility, it is only necessary to step on one side to be perfectly 
secure—a bullet, hardened either with tin or quicksilver, and thrown in behind the elbow at the proper moment, being 
almost sure to prove fatal, after a race of three or four hundred yards. But though, glorying not in panoply of plate armour 
which encases the ribs of his Asiatie brother, the stupid and vicious beast is nevertheless enveloped in a suit of mail which 
will successfully repel any ordinary bullet— one of unadulterated lead, far from penetrating, most frequently, falling flattened 
from his hide, . 
When the Dutch first established themselves at the Cape of Bon Esperance—now nearly two centuries ago, the 
Zwart Rhinoster existed in considerable numbers on the present site of Cape Town, along the base of Table Mountain; but 
within the Colony the species has long ceased to exist, the remnant having instinetively fled before the destructive cannonade 
‘to which it was subjected. Gregarious in fiyes and sixes, they are extremely abundant in the wilds of the interior, and I 
have, during a single day, counted upwards of sixty, The Hottentots, ever gasconading of their skill in hunting them, had 
long kept as on the gui vive, but it was not until we had ‘reached the sedgy Molopo, that the animal's dusky form actually 
