In India the hunting of the rhinoceros is famous sport. The people go out mounted upon elephants, and usually find five or six of these animals in a drove. Their hides are so thick that it is difficult to kill them. One will often receive twenty bullets before he falls. The rhinoceros attacks an elephant fearlessly, and endeavors to get his horn under him so as to rip him open. But the elephant, finding what he would be at, turns his tail to the assailant, who gives him a hunch behind, and tumbles his huge enemy upon his knees. Then the men upon the elephant fire their guns and pepper the thick hide of the rhinoceros with their bullets.
Thus goes the fight, and after many adventures, and much danger, and plenty of accidents and hair breadth ’scapes, and a vast waste of gunpowder and lead, the game usually runs away, or perhaps it is left as a trophy of the sportsman’s skill and prowess upon the field.
The rhinoceros feeds entirely upon vegetables, always living near water, and taking a frequent wallow in the mud, or a bath in the wave. He is fearful of man, and though dull of sight, has an acute scent and a sharp ear, which enable him usually to keep out of reach of the being he dreads so much. It is only when hunted and closely pursued, that he turns to fight, and then he is fierce and formidable. In confinement he becomes quiet and stupid, though he sometimes gets into a fury, and then he rends his cage in pieces with ease. It is almost impossible to confine him when his rage is excited.
Briers and Berries.
’Twas on a gloomy, smoky day,
(If rightly I the date remember,
For certainly I cannot say,)
About the middle of September,
When I, astride my pacing grey,
Was plodding on my weary way,