The Giraffe Hunters

by Mayne Reid

The runaway horse had shied out of its way; and it would have been well for the horseman if he had shown himself equally discreet. But Arend Von Wyk was a hunter,—and an officer of the Cape Militia,—and as the borelé passed by him, presenting a fine opportunity for a shot, he could not resist the temptation to give it one.

Pulling up his horse, or rather trying to do so, for the animal was restive in the presence of such danger, he fired. The shot produced a result that was neither expected nor desired. With a roar like the bellowing of an angry bull, the monster turned and charged straight towards the horseman.

Arend was obliged to seek safety in flight, while the borelé pursued in a manner that told of its being wounded, but not incapacitated from seeking revenge.

At the commencement of the chase, there was but a very short distance between pursuer and pursued; and in place of suddenly turning out of the track, and allowing the monster to pass by him,—which he should have done, knowing the defect of vision natural to the rhinoceros,—the young hunter continued on in a straight line, all the while employed in reloading his rifle.

His mistake did not originate in any want of knowledge, or presence of mind, but rather from carelessness and an unworthy estimate of the abilities of the borelé to overtake him. He had long been a successful hunter, and success too often begets that over-confidence which leads to many a mischance, that the more cautious sportsman will avoid.

Suddenly he found his flight arrested by the thick scrub of thorny bushes, known in South Africa as the “wait a bits”, and the horse he was riding did wait a bit,—and so long that the borelé was soon close upon his heels.

There was now neither time nor room to turn either to the right or left.

The rifle was at length loaded, but there would have been but little chance of killing the rhinoceros by a single shot, especially with such uncertain aim as could have been taken from the back of a frightened horse.

Arend, therefore, threw himself from the saddle. He had a twofold purpose in doing so. His aim would be more correct, and there was the chance of the borelé keeping on after the horse, and leaving him an undisturbed spectator of the chase.

The field of view embraced by the eyes of a rhinoceros is not large; but, unfortunately for the hunter, as the frightened horse fled from his side, it was he himself that came within the circumscribed circle of the borelé’s vision.