"Elephants were formerly very troublesome here, and the natives were unable to protect their banana plantations from their ravages. A herd of wild elephants may wander all around a plantation, and if they have never tasted bananas a very slight fence will keep them off; but when the taste for this food has been created they seem unwilling to live on anything else, and will run great risks to obtain it."
"There is one animal of Africa we have not yet made much acquaintance with," said one of the youths.
"What is that?" the other asked.
"The rhinoceros," was the reply.
"We are not in the region where he most abounds," said Abdul, "though he is not by any means unknown here. His proper country is South Africa, and he formerly flourished nearly down to the Cape of Good Hope. The settlement of the country drove him to the interior along with the elephant, the lion, and other noble game; and now the rhinoceros must be sought in the interior wilds, and is not always found when sought."
"This is a good place to have a talk about him," said the Doctor, as they sat on the bank near the falls and watched the water pouring through its contracted channel; "and perhaps we may have a chance to shoot at one of these thick-skinned creatures before we leave the neighborhood of the highest cataract of the Nile.
READY FOR BUSINESS.
"Scientifically considered," the Doctor continued, "the rhinoceros may be set down as an ungulate mammal, secondary only to the elephant in point of size among terrestrial animals. He is distinguished by his horn, which is supported on the end of the nose, but not connected with it, as it comes away with the hide, to which it and its broad base entirely belong."