t taken for the elephant. In fact, the kobaoba rhinoceros is the
quadruped next to the elephant in size; and with his great muzzle--full
eighteen inches broad--his long clumsy head, his vast ponderous body,
this animal impresses one with an idea of strength and massive grandeur
as great, and some say greater than the elephant himself. He looks,
indeed, like a caricature of the elephant. It was not such a bad
mistake, then, when our people by the wagon took the "kobaoba" for the
"mighty elephant."

Swartboy, however, set them all right by declaring that the animal they
saw was the white rhinoceros.

CHAPTER XVII.

A HEAVY COMBAT.

When they first saw the kobaoba, he was, as stated, just coming out of
the thicket. Without halting, he headed in the direction of the vley
already mentioned; and kept on towards it, his object evidently being to
reach the water.

This little lake, of course, owed its existence to the spring--though it
was full two hundred yards from the latter--and about the same from the
great tree. It was nearly circular in shape, and about one hundred yards
in diameter, so that its superficial area would thus be a little over
two English acres. It merited, then, the name of "lake;" and by that
name the young people already called it.

On its upper side--that in the direction of the spring--its shore was
high, and in one or two places rocky, and these rocks ran back to the
spring along the channel of a little rivulet. On the west or outer side
of the lake the land lay lower, and the water at one or two points
lipped up nearly to the level of the plain. For this reason it was, that
upon that side, the bank was paddled all over with tracks of animals
that had been to drink. Hendrik the hunter had observed among them the
footprints of many kinds he knew nothing about.

It was for the lower end of the lake the kobaoba was making--no doubt
with him an old and favourite drinking place.

There was a point where the water was easier of access than elsewhere--a
little to one side of where the wash or waste-stream of the lake ran
out. It was a sort of cove with bright sandy beach, and approachable
from the plain by a miniature gorge, hollowed out, no doubt, by the long
usage of those animals who came to drink at the vley. By entering this
cove, the tallest animals might get deep water and good bottom, so that
they could drink without much straining or stooping. The kobaoba came on
in a direct line fo