A Morning Walk on the Tana River
When I went to Africa I was equipped with the following fund of knowledge concerning the rhinoceros: First, that he is familiarly called "rhino" by the daring hunters who have written about him; second, that he is a member of the Perissodactyl family, whose sole representatives are the horse, the rhino, and the tapir; third, that he savagely charges human beings who write books about their thrilling adventures in Africa, and, finally, that he looks like a hang-over from the pterodactyl age. The books and magazine stories that have come out since Mr. Roosevelt made African hunting the vogue invariably describe the rhino as being one of the most dangerous of African animals. A charging rhino, a wounded lion, a cape buffalo, and a frenzied elephant are the four terrors of the African hunters. All other forms of danger are slight compared with these, and I was full to the guards with a vast and fearful respect for the rhino. I fancied myself spinning around like a pinwheel with the horn of a rhino as a pivot, and the thought had little to commend itself to a lover of longevity—such as myself, for instance.
A Comfortable Hammock of Zebra Skin
Mrs. Akeley and Her Tana River Monkey
After going to Africa and meeting some of the best members of the rhino set I was able to form some conclusions of my own, chief of which is the belief that he is dangerous only if he hits you. As long as you can keep out of his reach you are in no great danger except from the thorns.
The prevailing estimate of the rhino is that he is an inoffensive creature who likes to bask under the shade of a tree and watch the years go parading by. His thick skin and fierce armament of horns seem to make of him a relic of some long-forgotten age—the last survivor of the time when mammoths and dinosauruses roamed the manless waste and time was counted in geological terms instead of days and minutes. His eyes are dimmed and he sees nothing beyond a few yards away, but his hearing and sense of smell are keen, and he sniffs danger from afar in case danger happens to be to windward of him. His sensitive nose is always alert for foreign and, therefore, suspicious odors, and when he smells the blood of an Englishman, or even an American, his tail goes up in anger, he sniffs and snorts and races around in a circle while he locates the direction where the danger lies—and then, look out. A blind, furious rush which only a well-sped bullet can prevent causing the untimely end of whatever happens to be in the way. That is the popular estimate of the rhino.
Popular Conception of Rhino