Elsewhere he will diminish, and finally
disappear.
For one thing, and for one thing only, is the traveller indebted
to the rhinoceros. The beast is lazy, large, and has an excellent
eye for easy ways through. For this reason, as regards the
question of good roads, he combines the excellent qualities of
Public Sentiment, the Steam Roller, and the Expert Engineer.
Through thorn thickets impenetrable to anything less armoured
than a Dreadnaught like himself he clears excellent paths. Down
and out of eroded ravines with perpendicular sides he makes
excellent wide trails, tramped hard, on easy grades, often with
zigzags to ease the slant. In some of the high country where the
torrential rains wash hundreds of such gullies across the line of
march it is hardly an exaggeration to say that travel would be
practically impossible without the rhino trails wherewith to
cross. Sometimes the perpendicular banks will extend for miles
without offering any natural break down to the stream-bed. Since
this is so I respectfully submit to Government the following
proposal:
(a) That a limited number of these beasts shall be licensed as
Trail Rhinos; and that all the rest shall be killed from the
settled and regularly travelled districts.
(b) That these Trail Rhinos shall be suitably hobbled by short
steel chains.
(c) That each Trail Rhino shall carry painted conspicuously on
his side his serial number.
