The rhinoceros is hunted in various manners. One of the most approved plans is to stalk the animal, either when feeding or reposing. If the sportsman keep well under the wind, and there be the least cover, he has no difficulty in approaching the beast within easy range, when, if the ball be well directed, it is killed on the spot. But by far the most convenient way of destroying the animal is to shoot it from a cover or a screen, when it comes to the pool to slake its thirst. Occasionally it is also taken in pitfalls. Contrary to common belief, a leaden ball (though spelter is preferable) will easily find its way through the hide of the African rhinoceros, but it is necessary to be within thirty or forty paces of the brute, and desirable to have a double charge of powder. The most deadly part to aim at is just behind the shoulder; a ball through the centre of the lobes of the lungs is certain to cause almost instantaneous death. A shot in the head never or rarely proves fatal, as the brain, which, in proportion to the bulk of the animal, does not attain the three-hundredth part of the size of the human cerebrum, is protected, besides its smallness, by a prodigious case of bone, hide, and horn. However severely wounded the rhinoceros may be, he seldom bleeds externally. This is attributable in part, no doubt, to the great thickness of the hide and its elasticity, which occasions the hole caused by the bullet nearly to close up, as also from the hide not being firmly attached to the body, but constantly moving.
From what has been related of the fury of the rhinoceros, its pursuit must evidently be attended with considerable danger, and thus the annals of the wild sports of Southern Africa are full of hair-breadth escapes from its terrific charge. Once Mr. Oswell, having lodged a ball in the body of a huge white rhinoceros, was surprised to see the beast, instead of seeking safety in flight, as is generally the case with this inoffensive species, suddenly stop short, and having eyed him curiously for a second or two, walk slowly towards him. Though never dreaming of danger, he instinctively turned his horse’s head away; but strange to say, this creature, usually so docile, now absolutely refused to give him his head. When at last he did so, it was too late, for although the rhinoceros had only been walking, the distance was now so small that contact was unavoidable. In another moment the brute bent low his head, and with a thrust upwards, struck his horn into the ribs of the horse with such force as to penetrate to the very saddle on the opposite side, where the rider felt its sharp point against his leg. The violence of the blow was so tremendous as to cause the horse to make a complete somersault in the air, coming heavily down on his back. The rider was, of course, violently precipitated to the ground. While thus prostrated, he saw the horn of the monster alongside of him; but without attempting to do any further mischief, the brute started off at a canter from the scene of action. If the rhinoceros imagined it had come off as victor, it was, however, soon undeceived; for Mr. Oswell, rushing upon one of his companions, who by this time had come up, and unceremoniously pulling him off his horse, leapt into the saddle, and without a hat, and his face streaming with blood, was quickly in pursuit of the beast, which he soon had the satisfaction to see stretched lifeless at his feet.
Mr. Andersson, another well-known African Nimrod, having one day wounded a black rhinoceros, and being in an unfavourable situation for renewing his shot with deadly effect, the monster, snorting horribly, erecting its tail, keeping its head close to the ground, and raising clouds of dust by its feet, rushed at him furiously. ‘I had only just time to level my rifle and fire,’ says this adventurous traveller, ‘before it was upon me, and the next instant knocked me to the ground. The shock was so violent as to send my rifle, powder-flask, and ball-pouch spinning ten feet high in the air. On the beast charging me, it crossed my mind that, unless gored at once by its horn, its impetus would be such as to carry it beyond me, and I might thus be afforded a chance of escape, and so, indeed, it happened, for, having been tumbled over and trampled on with great violence, the fore-quarter of the enraged brute passed over my body. Struggling for life, I seized my opportunity, and as the animal was recovering itself for a renewal of the charge, scrambled out from between its hind legs. But the infuriated rhinoceros had not yet done with me, for scarcely had I regained my feet, before he struck me down a second time, and with his horn ripped up my right thigh (though not very deeply) from near the knee to the hip: with his fore-feet, moreover, he hit me a terrific blow on the left shoulder, near the back of the neck. My ribs bent under the enormous weight and pressure, and for a moment I must, as I believe, have lost consciousness; I have at least very indistinct notions of what afterwards took place. All I remember is, that when I raised my head, I heard a furious snorting and plunging amongst the neighbouring bushes. I now arose, though with great difficulty, and made my way in the best manner I was able towards a large tree near at hand for shelter; but this precaution was needless; the beast, for the time at least, showed no inclination further to molest me. Either in the mêlée, or owing to the confusion caused by its wounds, it had lost sight of me, or felt satisfied with the revenge it had taken. Be that as it may, I escaped with life, though sadly wounded and severely bruised, in which disabled state I had great difficulty in getting back to my screen.’
The rhinoceros is hunted for its flesh, its hide (which is manufactured into the best and hardest leather that can be imagined), and its horns, which, being capable of a high polish, fetch at the Cape a higher price than ordinary elephant ivory. It is extensively used in the manufacture of sword-handles, drinking-cups, ramrods for rifles, and a variety of other purposes. Among Oriental princes, goblets made of rhinoceros horn are in high esteem, as they are supposed to have the virtue of detecting poison by causing the deadly liquid to ferment till it flows over the rim, or, as some say, to split the cup.
The number of rhinoceroses destroyed annually in South Africa is very considerable. Messrs. Oswell and Varden killed in one year no less than eighty-nine, and in one journey, Andersson shot, single-handed, nearly two-thirds of this number. It is thus not to be wondered at that the rhinoceros, which formerly ranged as far as the Cape, is now but seldom found to the south of the tropic.
The single-horned Indian rhinoceros was already known to the ancients, and not unfrequently doomed to bleed in the Roman amphitheatres. One which was sent to King Emanuel of Portugal in the year 1513, and presented by him to the Pope, had the honour to be pictured in a woodcut by no less an artist than Albrecht Dürer himself. Latterly, rhinoceroses have much more frequently been sent to Europe, particularly the Asiatic species, and all the chief zoological gardens possess specimens of the unwieldy creature.
In its native haunts, the Indian rhinoceros lends a tranquil indolent life, wallowing on the marshy border of lakes and rivers, and occasionally bathing itself in their waters. Its movements are usually slow, and it carries its head low like the hog, ploughing up the ground with its horn, and making its way by sheer force through the jungle. Though naturally of a quiet and inoffensive disposition, it is very dangerous when provoked, charging with resistless impetuosity, and trampling down or ripping up with its horn any animal which opposes it.
Besides the single-horned species which inhabits the Indian peninsula, Java, and Borneo, Sumatra possesses a rhinoceros with a double horn, which is, however, distinguished from the analogous African species by the large folds of its skin, and its smaller size. It is even asserted that there exists in the same island a hornless species, and another with three horns. There surely can be no better proof of the difficulties which Natural History has to contend with in the wilder regions of the tropical zone, and of the vast field still open to future zoologists, than that, in spite of all investigations, we do not yet even know with certainty all the species of so large a brute as the rhinoceros.
In Java, this huge pachyderm is met with in the jungles of the low country, but its chief haunts are the higher forest-lands, which contain many small lakes and pools, whose banks are covered with high grasses. In these solitudes, which are seldom visited by man, the rhinoceros finds all that it requires for food and enjoyment. As it is uncommonly shy, the traveller rarely meets it; but sometimes, while threading his way through the thicket, he may chance to surprise wild steers and rhinoceroses grazing on the brink of a pool, or quietly lying in the morass. The grooved paths of the rhinoceros, deeply worn into the solid rock, are found even on the summits of mountains above the level of the sea. They are frequently used for the destruction of the animal, for in the steeper places, where, on climbing up or down, it is obliged to stretch out its body, so that the abdomen nearly reaches the ground, the Javanese fix large scythe-like knives into the rock, which they cover with moss and herbage, thus forcing the poor rhinoceros to commit an involuntary suicide, and teaching him, though too late to profit by his experience, how difficult it is to escape the cunning of man.