St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1891-09-05
TRAPPING THE RHINocERoa'


An Exciting Scene In the Heart Of IN
African Jungle.
An African rhinoceros has no mere
sense of fear than . rock. The ele-
phant will run away when the odds are
against him, aud the buffalo will calcu-
late his chances before an attack, un-
less come upon too suddenly, but the
rhinoceros never stops to reason. and
whenever anything moves he makes q
rush to destroy il. That is why il is
comparatively easy TO catch him in .
pit
An African traveller. telling of his
adventures, says:
I'VE were on the far side of the pit,
and, MS soon rs we saw the beast, we
sprang up and waved our arms to at
tract him. He accepted tine defiance,
lowered his head, and as he came for
us he made the ground tremble. We
pretended TO run away. and the old fell
low was on the brink of the pit before
he suspected the job we had put up on
him. lie uttered a loud 'WoOfr and
next moment landed square on his head
in the bottom of the pit, breaking his
neck with a crack which could have
been heard forty rods awav.'1
OF another occasion, he writes:
''Some ten or twelve of us were re-
turning from q bee hunt one day, and
We took path that had been made by
big game on their way to water. Mt the
end of which we had digged pit, COW
cred with light canes. At this time,
not rhinoceros had been seen in our
neighborhood for month; but, as the
path was long one and walled in with
thOrns. we took the precaution of send.
ing the three men who had the honey
on ahead.
AFTER they had been gone about ten
minutes we were ready to move. We
sat just ut the entrance Of tine path,
with open ground on three sides Of u.s.
To the left of ms was the extension of
the thicket I had been carrying a
white stone, which had
picked up in the bed of dry creek, and
! now gave it a fling into the thicket.
The results were immediate and unex.
pected. The stone had hardly fallen |
when there was q 'woof and a great |
and all of us knew that q
rhinoceros was charging us.
Our way lay up the path, and it SD |
happened that was the last one to |
enter it. The beast was not yet in |
sight rs ! turned to flee. but before I |
had gone one hundred feet he was out |
Df the thicket. ] kept close to the heels |
II the last native. but had not run a
hundred yards when realized that the
-hinoccros was gaining on me-
THE path was perhaps six feet wide,
with no possible chance to escape to the
light or left. The thotn bushes would
ct nothing but a rhinoccros or elephant
'ass, and the elephant will not crash
nto them except when hard pressed.
I'VE were nearly half mile from the
lit and it was our only hope of safety
IS we ran. Fortunattlyfo for us nothing
lad disturbed it, and, when l crossed it
he rhinocerOs was not over ten feet be-
lind me. Indeed. as ! went off the
overing at one end, he crashed through
at the other.
HE went into the pit with loud
mort, and then we saw what we had
ot before suspected-a second beast
caring down in the wake of the first
''lle made no effort to check his speed,
nd went in ON top of the other with an
wful crash. He got weiged in by the
cad, leaving his hind legs kicking in
he air, and we killed both animals
nth our spears. s."-Golden DAYS