In French Equatorial Africa while I was there, owing to the prevailing high prices offered for the horns, many thousands of those great brutes were slaughtered. Some French hunters, employing as many as fifty armed cap-and-powder native hunters and many more with modern rifles, would set out after them in large parties for months on end, returning with anything between half a ton and three tons of horns; and many dozens of such parties were all actively engaged in different parts of the country right across to Lake Chad and well across the British Nigerian frontier. During the years 1927-31 there must have been well over 10,000 white rhinos shot in these territories alone.
In the southern portions of Africa this beast is now very rare, but in the southern parts of the Sudan and northeast Belgian Congo they are still plentiful.
In the southern portions of Africa this beast is now very rare, but in the southern parts of the Sudan and northeast Belgian Congo they are still plentiful.
In the Tsavo country, while after a very big bull elephant, I happened to come across a well-known white hunter from Nairobi after the same elephant, and carrying a big double .577. As our safaris were both moving up along the Tsavo River to a point where each would turn his own way according to his individual judgment, we just strolled along together through the bush for half an hour or more. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, a black rhino shot out and, ears pitched forward, came straight for my companion.
One evening, camped on the banks of the Upper T'savo River, I had another chance to study the black rhino by night.
The long thin-horned rhino are always found in thick bush or forest country where the rainfall is plentiful, the soil deep and moist at fairly high altitudes, such as west and north Kenya and the Aberdare Mountains of Kenya Colony and such country. In the hard low country of scrub-thorn and gravel ground the long-horned rhino is never found, unless by chance it has been hunted down there, when, left to itself, it will quickly return to its forest home. Indeed, a long-horned rhino could not live in the low hard country, if only on account of its long horn, as the long thin horn could never dig up the necessary root food in the hard ground. It would be like a man trying to dig with his bare hands in a hard ant-heap in the desert for apples. The low, thorn-scrub bush-country rhinos have very thick, short strong horns well adapted to the country in which they are found, and they in turn could not thrive in the high forest country.
Indeed, a long-horned rhino could not live in the low hard country, if only on account of its long horn, as the long thin horn could never dig up the necessary root food in the hard ground. It would be like a man trying to dig with his bare hands in a hard ant-heap in the desert for apples. The low, thorn-scrub bush-country rhinos have very thick, short strong horns well adapted to the country in which they are found, and they in turn could not thrive in the high forest country. First, on account of the cold, which they are not accustomed to, and the heavy rains, and, second, their shorter horns could not dig down far enough for the root food in the forest, and the foliage of the forest would not suit them any more than green grass suits the Gerenuk.
I am glad to say that I took no part in this, refusing all big offers made to me from time to time to take charge of one or other of these slaughtering parties. These rhino are not so playful as the black rhino and not so fast. A black rhino can easily outrun the average hunting pony and keep going for miles.
The so-called white rhino (Ceratotherium simus) is much the same colour as the black rhino, and I have seen some black rhinos actually lighter than they are.
Many hold that the rhino is very poor-sighted. But take the following facts and consider whether their sight can really be as poor as made out, particularly by night. I was camped in the bush down in the lower Wakamba country among the thorn-trees growing very close together, trunks only some six feet apart and extending for some distance, set out like a chess-board. The night was a very dark and stormy one, and about 11 pm. three large rhinos came along at full speed past my tent and through the thorns, the noise of the stampeding feet disappearing in the distance. Knowing the density of the thorn-trees, through which one could not have ridden a polo pony without scrubbing against first one pole and then another, I wondered much, as I had heard no trees hit. Next morning, being curious to investigate the performance of the night before, I followed a considerable distance through the trees. There were the three spoors of the three big rhinos, each taking their own course along parallel lines not following one another, and, though plenty of mud about, not a single tree-trunk had been touched-and this at full speed in a very dark night. This surely could not have been by scent or hearing. At another place, while lying down near a watering-place (some hundred yards from the water) at night-time, with no tent, a rhino sounded about a hundred and fifty yards upwind. It sounded and sounded again, then gargled with strange ball-like, rolling noise in the throat. It was perfectly clear that the rhino had seen me lying down at that distance in the dark. I had not passed that way and the wind was from the rhino, not from my side. As I endeavoured to shift my position the rhino came on at the charge. I heard it coming but couldn't see it. Waiting, sitting down until I felt it close in front of me, 1 loosed off my 10.75 Mauser. The rhino veered and charged past me, taking the skin off the side of my right forehead and bumping me heavily on the shoulder as it passed in the inky darkness, and did not return. Surely this was eyesight. I couldn't see ten yards round me and I was not on its path to water. Later on, rhinos came to this same water, snorted and blasted at me, and clearly saw me but did not in any way interfere. I was quite alone at the time, as I had been caught by the darkness in the wait-a-bit thorns, some miles from my camp, and this place was the only little clearance near. A dying rhino is an upsetting object to watch. Its great struggle and heavy sighs are most distressing, and pathetic little squeaks it makes as if pleading for help. It is the worst animal, I think, to watch dying.
The so-called white rhino (Ceratotherium simus) is much the same colour as the black rhino, and I have seen some black rhinos actually lighter than they are.
Most apparent charges are really made in its endeavors to break through and get away. Those are easy to discriminate between if the rhino can be seen. A steady advance with the ears pricked forward towards one is a most dangerous sign, and one must quickly and quietly give way or face it. A charge across a clearance or through light bush, with both cars pricked forward, where a rhino can clearly see its man and charges towards him, is a death charge and must be met. Even if such a charging rhino should, for a few moments, lose sight of its target, it will turn and hunt round for it. In the bush or clearance a rushing rhino with both cars going in all directions is seeking an outlet and will pass within a few feet of one without pausing. It is well to understand these signs as many a poor rhino has been shot as a charging rhino while, as a matter of fact, it was doing its best to avoid one. In a big forest, as a rule, rhinos are not so dangerous as in the thorn-scrub country. The reason is that in a forest there is not that nerve-jarring, snapping, cracking, scraping, scratching noise to be heard in the scrub country. The rhino can locate the intruder easier and get away silently. The ground, too, is soft and springy, and not hard, noisy and gravelly.
Their natural habitation was the soft green, thornless bush country and were often to be met with in parties of three to a dozen and more, browsing in the open like great cattle.
Photo of an old rhino of Tanaland, showing the growth of a third horn (behind the second horn).
