Few men, if any, could have had a wider experience with the black rhinoceros in East Africa than my friend the late A. H. Neumann, whose recent death I shall never cease to deplore, and I therefore make no apology for quoting a few sentences from the very interesting and informing article contributed by him to the Great and Small Game of Africa on the subject of this animal. Neumann says:
As has often been pointed out, the rhino is the most intensely stupid of animals, and marvellously blind. So much so, that it may often be approached even on a bare plain with little trouble up wind. It is their very stupidity and blindness which makes these beasts a source of danger to passing caravans; for should the wind be blowing from them, and unless they be accompanied by tick-birds, as they often are, which alarm them and cause them to make off, they frequently remain unconscious of the approach of a caravan until it is close to them, when, being suddenly confronted with a long line of porters, they will sometimes charge straight through it, apparently under the impression that there is no other way of escape open. On the other hand, they are keen-scented; and if the wind be blowing in their direction they start away at a quick trot as soon as the taint reaches them, and while yet a long way off.
As regards the much-disputed question, to what degree the rhinoceros is a dangerous beast, the result of my experience and observations is very decidedly to convince me that, under ordinary circumstances and with proper caution, there is not very much risk in shooting him, and that the danger is not to be compared in any way with that attending the pursuit of the elephant. At the same time, there is always a possibility that one may charge, and there is therefore a certain amount of excitement in the sport; and instances are not rare of men having been badly injured by these beasts....
The Ndorobos kill these animals with their elephant harpoons, or trap them in the same manner as elephants. Those I have been among have far less fear of rhinoceroses than of elephants, and as a consequence it is a rare thing to see a rhino in country much frequented by such of these people as have much skill and courage in elephant-hunting. The same applies to Swahilis, many of whom think nothing of shooting a "faro," though they would not dream of attacking elephants.
The only other man whose experience with rhinoceroses in East Africa has been equal to that of Arthur Neumann is Mr. F. J. Jackson, C.B., who for some years past has been a most able administrator of the territories in which he first made a name as a hunter and a naturalist. Mr. Jackson's testimony concerning the character of the black rhinoceros as he has known that animal appears to me to coincide very closely with that arrived at by Neumann, his great friend and only rival as a hunter in East Africa. Like Neumann, Jackson fully realises that black rhinoceroses are sometimes vicious and dangerous, but his experience has been that, as a rule, these animals avoid and run away from human beings if they can, and that even when they rush snorting through a long line of native porters, they are usually trying to escape from rather than viciously attacking these men. In the course of the very interesting article on the black rhinoceros contributed by Mr. F. J. Jackson to vol. i. on Big Game Shooting of the Badminton Library, he states: "When alarmed, the rhinoceros becomes easily flurried, appears to do things on impulse which other animals endowed with more sagacity would not do, and is by no means the vicious and vindictive brute which some writers have found him to be in South Africa and the Soudan. In the majority of cases, where a rhinoceros is said, by men who perhaps have not been very well acquainted with his peculiarities, to have charged in a most determined and vicious manner, I believe this so-called charge to have been nothing more than the first headlong and impetuous rush of the beast in a semidazed state, endeavouring to avoid an encounter rather than court one."
In the course of the Report made to the Earl of Elgin on the game of the East Africa Protectorate by the Chief Commissioner, Captain (now Sir James) Hayes-Sadler, dated "Commissioner's Office, Nairobi, September 28, 1906," the following passage occurs: "This interesting Pachyderm (the black rhinoceros), though sometimes a dangerous, is always a stupid animal, and, from his bulk and the nature of the country he inhabits, with but few exceptions falls an easy prey. My experience of him, too, is that in fairly open country he is easily driven away, and that therefore the necessity of shooting to protect life is not nearly so frequent as has sometimes been alleged."
The opinion expressed in the above paragraph concerning the black rhinoceros and the danger of its pursuit has, I think, been proved to be fairly accurate by the experience of the many sportsmen (most of them utterly inexperienced in hunting large and dangerous animals) who have visited British East Africa in recent years; for since Mr. B. Eastwood was very badly injured, and indeed had a most miraculous escape, near Lake Baringo, in October 1902, from a rhinoceros which he thought he had killed, but which got on to its feet again and charged him after he had walked close up to where it was lying, I have not heard of any other accident having occurred in the hunting of these animals, although during the three years ending on March 31, 1906, no less than 308 black rhinoceroses were killed under sportsmen's and settlers' licences in British East Africa, besides twenty-three others which were shot on the border of the same territory by the members of the Anglo-German Boundary Commission.
The big-game hunter of to-day is armed with weapons which are vastly superior to those which the old pioneer hunters of South Africa had to rely upon in bygone times, and the dangers of big-game hunting are, in consequence, now very much less than they were then; but still, judging from my own experience (and in 1872, 1873, and 1874 the clumsy old four-bore guns I used were very inferior even to the two-grooved rifles possessed by Harris, Oswell, or Gordon Cumming) and all I heard from many old Boer and native hunters, I feel convinced that the character of the black rhinoceros was originally painted by picturesque writers in colours which, although they may have been appropriate to a certain small proportion of these animals, were quite undeserved by the great majority of the species. I will conclude these notes on the black rhinoceros with a letter which I have lately received from President Roosevelt, covering a most remarkable and excessively interesting description of a struggle between a crocodile and a rhinoceros in the Tana river, in British East Africa. Before making any comments on this extraordinary incident, I will first give both President Roosevelt's letter to myself and his correspondent's communication, as I have full permission to do.
The White House, Washington,
September 27, 1907.My dear Mr. Selous—I don't know whether the enclosed letter and photographs will be of any value to you in your book or not. Both relate to an occurrence so remarkable that I thought I would send them to you. Fleischmann is a man of good standing, entirely truthful, and he had no conception of the importance of what he was telling me. I told him that the "authorities in Africa" who informed him that the crocodile might have gotten a purchase by wrapping its tail around something sunken were doubtless in error, and advised him to leave it out of the letter which he wrote me, which I told him I was going to send to you. But he put it in, and I am sending it along. It is the only part of his letter which is mere hearsay or guesswork. I had no conception that crocodiles would tackle a rhinoceros. But you may remember in Samuel Baker's Wild Beasts and Their Ways that he speaks of seeing crocodiles in Africa with the girth of a hippopotamus. In any event I send you the letter.
The other day, in reading Big Game, in the Badminton Library, I noticed that Oswell, the South African hunter, speaks of trying to cut off a cheetah, and that the latter distanced his horse with the utmost ease. This tends to confirm me in the opinion that the cheetah for a half mile or so can readily distance a horse, and that when pursued by you the two animals you overtook at first simply tried to keep ahead of you, not trying to exert themselves, and that after a half mile was passed their wind was gone and then they gave out.
When do you think you will publish your book?
Sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Frederick C. Selous,
Heatherside, Worplesdon,
Surrey, England.Cincinnati, September 23, 1907.
My dear Mr. President—I take pleasure in sending you under separate cover to-day, as per your request, the enlarged photographs of the encounter between a rhinoceros and crocodiles in the Tana river, British East Africa; also another photograph showing a large herd of hippopotami in the Tana river, which I believe may prove of interest to you.
I shall also undertake to give you a brief description of the attack of the crocodile upon the rhino, which resulted in the latter's death. While encamped on the Thika river, about one hundred yards above its junction with the Tana, the attention of the members of our hunting party was called to the loud cries of the porters. A moment later "Ali," the Somali headman, came running in to tell us that a mamba (crocodile) had seized a faro (rhinoceros), as the latter stepped into the river to drink. "Ali" was concealed in the bushes on the side of the river opposite the scene at the time the rhino came down to drink. When our party arrived, about fifty of our porters were on a sandbank leading out into the Tana river. The rhino was held by its left hind-leg, which had been seized by the crocodile just as the big beast was leaving the river after drinking. At least half a dozen of the porters, who had been lying in the bushes near the scene, in reply to my questions, agreed as to the manner the rhino was attacked.
When we neared the point of attack, the rhino appeared panic-stricken, making very little noise—simply straining and heaving in its efforts to release its leg from the jaws of the crocodile. While making but little headway, the rhino did for a time succeed in holding its own, keeping in shallow water, as the photos 1 and 2 show. A moment or two later, however, blood appeared on the surface of the water, leading us to believe that the crocodile had been reinforced by other mambas which had been attracted to the scene by the blood and lashing of the water. The struggle continued on down the stream, the combatants having moved quite a distance from the original point of attack. The rhino still managed to keep on its feet, facing either down stream or toward the opposite bank, and for a distance of at least one hundred yards down stream had made no perceptible loss of ground. Shortly afterward, however, apparently maddened by the pain it was undoubtedly suffering (for now much more blood and pieces of flesh appeared on the surface of the water), the rhino evidently lost its head and attempted to cross through the deep water to the opposite shore, as shown in photo 3. This move was the beginning of the rhino's end, for as soon as it turned and met with deeper water, it lost the advantage of a firm foothold in the shallow water, and the animal was quickly drawn beneath the surface.
The rhino was a full-grown female with a horn which we estimated to be about twenty inches in length. It was the opinion of authorities in Africa to whom I told the story of the struggle, that a very large crocodile had taken hold of the rhino's leg and wrapped its tail around some sunken obstacle, thus giving it a purchase, as it were, which enabled it to successfully hold on until reinforced by other crocodiles.
These enlarged photographs were made from 3-1/4 × 4-1/2 negatives, the "snaps" being taken by my valet, who was acting in charge of the commissary department of the caravan.
I trust that these photos will reach you in good condition.
With my sincere regards, I have the honour to be,
Yours respectfully,
Max C. Fleischmann.
To Honorable Theodore Roosevelt,
Washington, D.C.