Though I doubt
if any persistent exponent of the art is likely to exist long.
Personally I like my own method, and stoutly maintain that
within twenty yards it is up to the rhinoceros to begin to do the
dodging.
XXII. THE RHINOCEROS-(continued)
At first the traveller is pleased and curious over rhinoceros.
After he has seen and encountered eight or ten, he begins to look
upon them as an unmitigated nuisance. By the time he has done a
week in thick rhino-infested scrub he gets fairly to hating them.
They are bad enough in the open plains, where they can be seen and
avoided, but in the tall grass or the scrub they are a continuous
anxiety. No cover seems small enough to reveal them. Often they
will stand or lie absolutely immobile until you are within a very
short distance, and then will outrageously break out. They are,
in spite of their clumsy build, as quick and active as polo
ponies, and are the only beasts I know of capable of leaping into
full speed ahead from a recumbent position. In thorn scrub they
are the worst, for there, no matter how alert the traveller may
hold himself, he is likely to come around a bush smack on one.
And a dozen times a day the throat-stopping, abrupt crash and
smash to right or left brings him up all standing, his heart
racing, the blood pounding through his veins. It is jumpy work,
and is very hard on the temper. In the natural reaction from
being startled into fits one snaps back to profanity. The
cumulative effects of the epithets hurled after a departing and
inconsiderately hasty rhinoceros may have done something toward
ruining the temper of the species. It does not matter whether or
not the individual beast proves dangerous; he is inevitably most
startling. I have come in at night with my eyes fairly aching
from spying for rhinos during a day's journey through high grass.
And, as a friend remarked, rhinos are such a mussy death. One
poor chap, killed while we were away on our first trip, could not
be moved from the spot where he had been trampled. A few
shovelfuls of earth over the remains was all the rhinoceros had
left possible.
Fortunately, in the thick stuff especially, it is often possible
to avoid the chance rhinoceros through the warning given by the
rhinoceros birds. These are birds about the size of a robin that
accompany the beast everywhere. They sit in a row along his back
occupying themselves with ticks and a good place to roost. Always
they are peaceful and quiet until a human being approaches. Then
they flutter a few feet into the air uttering a peculiar rapid
chattering. Writers with more sentiment than sense of proportion
assure us that this warns the rhinoceros of approaching danger!
On the contrary, I always looked at it the other way. The
rhinoceros birds thereby warned ME of danger, and I was duly
thankful.
The safari boys stand quite justly in a holy awe of the rhino.
The safari is strung out over a mile or two of country, as a
usual thing, and a downwind rhino is sure to pierce some part of
the line in his rush. Then down go the loads with a smash, and up
the nearest trees swarm the boys. Usually their refuges are thorn
trees, armed, even on the main trunk, with long sharp spikes.
There is no difficulty in going up, but the gingerly coming down,
after all the excitement has died, is a matter of deliberation
and of voices uplifted in woe. Cuninghame tells of an inadequate
slender and springy, but solitary, sapling into which swarmed
half his safari on the advent of a rambunctious rhino. The tree
swayed and bent and cracked alarmingly, threatening to dump the
whole lot on the ground. At each crack the boys yelled. This
attracted the rhinoceros, which immediately charged the tree full
tilt. He hit square, the tree shivered and creaked, the boys
wound their arms and legs around the slender support and howled
frantically. Again and again rhinoceros drew back to repeat his
butting of that tree. By the time Cuninghame reached the spot,
the tree, with its despairing burden of black birds, was clinging
to the soil by its last remaining roots.
In the Nairobi Club I met a gentleman with one arm gone at the
shoulder. He told his story in a slightly bored and drawling
voice, picking his words very carefully, and evidently most
occupied with neither understating nor overstating the case. It
seems he had been out, and had killed some sort of a buck. While
his men were occupied with this, he strolled on alone to see what
he could find. He found a rhinoceros, that charged viciously, and
into which he emptied his gun.
"When I came to," he said, "it was just coming on dusk, and the
lions were beginning to grunt. My arm was completely crushed, and
I was badly bruised and knocked about. As near as I could
remember I was fully ten miles from camp. A circle of carrion
birds stood all about me not more than ten feet away, and a great
many others were flapping over me and fighting in the air. These
last were so close that I could feel the wind from their wings.
It was rawther gruesome." He paused and thought a a moment, as
though weighing his words. "In fact," he added with an air of
final conviction, "it was QUITE gruesome!"
The most calm and imperturbable rhinoceros I ever saw was one
that made us a call on the Thika River. It was just noon, and our
boys were making camp after a morning's march. The usual racket
was on, and the usual varied movement of rather confused
industry.
