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 grues