is course, the whole of us had climbed up
into trees. The rhinoceros, limping with his wound, went round and
round, trying to find us out by the scent, but he tried in vain. At
last, one of the men, who had only an assaguay, said, 'Well, how long
are we going to stay here? Why don't you shoot?'

"'Well,' said Henrick, 'if you are so anxious to shoot, you may if you
please. Here is my powder-and-shot belt, and my gun lies under the tree.
The man immediately descended from the tree, loaded the gun, and
approaching the rhinoceros he fired and wounded it severely in the jaw.
The animal was stunned, and dropped on the spot. Thinking that it was
dead, we all descended fearlessly and collected round it; and the man
who had fired was very proud, and was giving directions to the others,
when of a sudden the animal began to recover, and kicked with his hind
legs. Henrick told us all to run for our lives, and set us the example.
The rhinoceros started up again, and singling out the unfortunate man
who had got down and fired at it, roaring and snorting with rage,
thundered after him.

"The man, perceiving that he could not outrun the beast, tried the same
plan as the other hunter did when the rhinoceros charged him: stopping
short, he jumped on one side, that the animal might pass him; but the
brute was not to be balked a second time; he caught the man on his horn
under the left thigh, and cutting it open as if it had been done with an
ax, tossed him a dozen yards up in the air. The poor fellow fell facing
the rhinoceros, with his legs spread; the beast rushed at him again, and
ripped up his body from his stomach to almost his throat, and again
tossed him in the air. Again he fell heavily to the ground. The
rhinoceros watched his fall, and running up to him trod upon him and
pounded him to a mummy. After this horrible tragedy, the beast limped
off into a bush. Henrick then crept up to the bush; the animal dashed
out again, and would certainly have killed another man if a dog had not
turned it. In turning short round upon the dog, the bone of its
fore-leg, which had been half broken through by Henrick's first shot,
snapped in two, and it fell, unable to recover itself, and was then shot
dead."

"A very awkward customer, at all events," observed the Major. "I presume
a leaden bullet would not enter?"

"No, it would flatten against most parts of his body. By the by, I saw
an instance of a rhinoceros having been destroyed by that c