These Huge Beasts
Have A Very Keen Sense Of Smell, But Equally
Indifferent Eyesight, And It Is Said That If A Hunter
Will Only Stand Perfectly Still On Meeting A Rhino,
It Will Pass Him By Without Attempting To Molest
Him.
I feel bound to add, however, that I have
so far failed to come across anybody who has
actually tried the experiment.
On the other hand,
I have met one or two men who have been
tossed on the horns of these animals, and they
described it as a very painful proceeding. It
generally means being a cripple for life, if one even
succeeds in escaping death. Mr. B. Eastwood,
the chief accountant of the Uganda Railway,
once gave me a graphic description of his
marvellous escape from an infuriated rhino. He
was on leave at the time on a hunting expedition
in the neighbourhood of Lake Baringo, about
eighty miles north of the railway from Nakuru,
and had shot and apparently killed a rhino.
On walking up to it, however, the brute rose
to its feet and literally fell on him, breaking four
ribs and his right arm. Not content with this,
it then stuck its horn through his thigh and tossed
him over its back, repeating this operation once or
twice. Finally, it lumbered off, leaving poor
Eastwood helpless and fainting in the long grass
where he had fallen. He was alone at the time,
and it was not for some hours that he was found
by his porters, who were only attracted to the
spot by the numbers of vultures hovering about,
waiting in their ghoulish manner for life to be
extinct before beginning their meal.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 128 of 247
Words from 35233 to 35512
of 68125