d rifles ready
for instant action. I occupied the middle with that dangerous weapon the
3A kodak. Memba Sasa followed at my elbow, holding my big gun.

Now the trouble with modern photography is that it is altogether too
lavish in its depiction of distances. If you do not believe it, take a
picture of a horse at as short a range as twenty-five yards. That equine
will, in the development, have receded to a respectable middle distance.
Therefore it had been agreed that the advance of the battle line was
to cease only when those rhinoceroses loomed up reasonably large in
the finder. I kept looking into the finder, you may be sure. Nearer and
nearer we crept. The great beasts were evidently basking in the sun.
Their little pig eyes alone gave any sign of life. Otherwise they
exhibited the complete immobility of something done in granite. Probably
no other beast impresses one with quite this quality. I suppose it is
because even the little motions peculiar to other animals are with
the rhinoceros entirely lacking. He is not in the least of a nervous
disposition, so he does not stamp his feet nor change his position. It
is useless for him to wag his tail; for, in the first place, the tail is
absurdly inadequate; and, in the second place, flies are not among his
troubles. Flies wouldn't bother you either, if you had a skin two inches
thick. So there they stood, inert and solid as two huge brown rocks,
save for the deep, wicked twinkle of their little eyes.

Yes, we were close enough to "see the whites of their eyes," if they
had had any: and also to be within the range of their limited vision. Of
course we were now stalking, and taking advantage of all the cover.

Those rhinoceroses looked to me like two Dreadnaughts. The African
two-horned rhinoceros is a bigger animal anyway than our circus friend,
who generally comes from India. One of these brutes I measured went five
feet nine inches at the shoulder, and was thirteen feet six inches from
bow to stern. Compare these dimensions with your own height and with the
length of your motor car. It is one thing to take on such beasts in the
hurry of surprise, the excitement of a charge, or to stalk up to within
a respectable range of them with a gun at ready. But this deliberate
sneaking up with the hope of being able to sneak away again was a little
too slow and cold-blooded. It made me nervous. I liked it, but I knew
at the time I was going to like it a whole lot better when it w