The rhinoceros is, with the giraffe, the hippopotamus, the
gerenuk, and the camel, one of Africa's unbelievable animals.
Nobody has bettered Kipling's description of him in the Just-so
Stories:
"A horn on his nose, piggy eyes, and few manners." He
lives a self-centred life, wrapped up in the porcine contentment
that broods within nor looks abroad over the land. When anything
external to himself and his food and drink penetrates to his
intelligence he makes a flurried fool of himself, rushing madly
and frantically here and there in a hysterical effort either to
destroy or get away from the cause of disturbance. He is the
incarnation of a living and perpetual Grouch.
Generally he lives by himself, sometimes with his spouse, more
rarely still with a third that is probably a grown-up son or
daughter. I personally have never seen more than three in
company. Some observers have reported larger bands, or rather
collections, but, lacking other evidence, I should be inclined to
suspect that some circumstances of food or water rather than a
sense of gregariousness had attracted a number of individuals to
one locality.
The rhinoceros has three objects in life: to fill his stomach
with food and water, to stand absolutely motionless under a bush,
and to imitate ant hills when he lies down in the tall grass.
When disturbed at any of these occupations he snorts. The snort
sounds exactly as though the safety valve of a locomotive had
suddenly opened and as suddenly shut again after two seconds of
escaping steam. Then he puts his head down and rushes madly in
some direction, generally upwind. As he weighs about two tons,
and can, in spite of his appearance, get over the ground nearly
as fast as an ordinary horse, he is a truly imposing sight,
especially since the innocent bystander generally happens to be
upwind, and hence in the general path of progress. This is
because the rhino's scent is his keenest sense, and through it he
becomes aware, in the majority of times, of man's presence. His
sight is very poor indeed; he cannot see clearly even a moving
object much beyond fifty yards. He can, however, hear pretty
well.
The novice, then, is subjected to what he calls a "vicious
charge" on the part of the rhinoceros, merely because his scent
was borne to the beast from upwind, and the rhino naturally runs
away upwind. He opens fire, and has another thrilling adventure
to relate. As a matter of fact, if he had approached from the
other side, and then aroused the animal with a clod of earth, the
beast would probably have "charged" away in identically the same
direction. I am convinced from a fairly varied experience that
this is the basis for most of the thrilling experiences with
rhinoceroses.
But whatever the beast's first mental attitude, the danger is
quite real. In the beginning he rushes, upwind in instinctive
reaction against the strange scent. If he catches sight of the
man at all, it must be after he has approached to pretty close
range, for only at close range are the rhino's eyes effective.
Then he is quite likely to finish what was at first a blind dash
by a genuine charge.
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