ill. At noon
they halted and the tents were pitched for a four hours' rest.

Adams, whilst dinner was preparing, walked away by himself till the camp
was hidden by a ridge, then he stood and looked around him.

Alone, like this, the spirit of the scene appeared before him: the sun,
and wind, and sky; the vast, vast spaces of waving grass, broken by the
beds of dried-up streams, strewn here and there with mimosas and thorns,
here dim with the growth of vangueria bushes, here sharp and gray-green
with cactus; this giant land, infinite, sunlit, and silent, spoke to him
in a new language.

It seemed to Adams that he had never known freedom before.

A shadow swept by him on the grass. He looked up and watched the great
bird that had cast the shadow sailing away on the wind, dwindling to a
point, and vanishing in the dazzling blue.

CHAPTER XVIII

FAR INTO ELEPHANT LAND

They sighted a small herd of giraffe two days later, but so far off as to
be beyond pursuit; but before evening, just as they were about to camp by
some pools, they came across rhino.

Berselius's quick eye spotted the beasts, a bull and a cow. They were in
the open, under shelter of some thick grass; the bull was half sitting up,
and his head and horn in the evening light might have been taken for the
stump of a broken tree. The cow was not visible at first, but almost
immediately after they sighted the bull, she heaved herself up and stood a
silhouette against the sky.

The wind was blowing from the beasts, so it was quite possible to get
close up to them. The meat would be useful, so Berselius and his companion
started, with Felix carrying the guns.

As they drew close Adams noticed that the back of the great cow seemed
alive and in motion. Half a dozen rhinoceros birds, in fact, were upon it,
and almost immediately, sighting the hunters, they rose chattering and
fluttering in the air.

These birds are the guardians of the half-blind rhinoceros. They live on
the parasites that infest his skin. It is a partnership. The birds warn
the rhinoceros of danger, and he, vicariously, feeds the birds. Scarcely
had the birds given warning than the bull heaved himself up. Berselius's
rifle rang out, but the light was uncertain, and the brute wounded, but
not mortally, charged forward took a half circle, swung his head from side
to side in search of his assailant, and sighted the cow. Instantly, horn
down and squealing, he charged her. She met him