ted some
danger in store--and he was not wrong; for, attaching a bit of white
paper to the fly-sight of my Blissett, I approached him, crawling under
cover of the banks until within eighty yards of him, when, finding that
the moon shone full on his flank, I raised myself upright and planted a
bullet behind his left shoulder. Thus died my first rhinoceros.

To make the most of the night, as I wanted meat for my men to cook, as
well as a stock to carry with them, or barter with the villagers for
grain, I now retired to my old position, and waited again.

After two hours had elapsed, two more rhinoceros approached me in the
same stealthy, fidgety way as the first one. They came even closer than
the first, but, the moon having passed beyond their meridian, I could
not obtain so clear a mark. Still they were big marks, and I determined
on doing my best before they had time to wind us; so stepping out,
with the sheikh's boys behind me carrying the second rifle to meet all
emergencies, I planted a ball in the larger one, and brought him round
with a roar and whooh-whooh, exactly to the best position I could wish
for receiving a second shot; but, alas! on turning sharply round for the
spare rifle, I had the mortification to see that both the black boys had
made off, and were scrambling like monkeys up a tree. At the same time
the rhinoceros, fortunately for me, on second consideration turned to
the right-about, and shuffled away, leaving, as is usually the case when
conical bullets are used, no traces of blood.

Thus ended the night's work. We now went home by dawn to apprise all the
porters that we had flesh in store for them, when the two boys who had
so shamelessly deserted me, instead of hiding their heads, described all
the night's scenes with such capital mimicry as to set the whole camp
in a roar. We had all now to hurry back to the carcass before the Wagogo
could find it; but though this precaution was quickly taken, still,
before the tough skin of the beast could be cut through, the Wagogo
began assembling like vultures, and fighting with my men. A more savage,
filthy, disgusting, but at the same time grotesque, scene than that
which followed cannot be conceived. All fell to work armed with swords,
spears, knives, and hatchets--cutting and slashing, thumping and
bawling, fighting and tearing, tumbling and wrestling up to their knees
in filth and blood in the middle of the carcass. When a tempting morsel
fell to the p