The Yale expositor., 1913-10-23

- WERE and there on the grassy |
n uplands, or hidden in the
wooded hollows of British
I'LL East Africa, lives the rhino-
ceros, Stunned by all other
game, huge, morose and solitary.
misunderstanding, perchance misun-
derstood, bold without knowledge, |
brave without discretion. one cannot |
but feel, after some acquaintance With |
the beast that Nature has been hard |
on him, that a little more considera' |
ton. a little more sympathy, and the |
'rhino" would have no cause to la F.
ment a diminishing population and in !
adequate birth-rate. But Nature, as
her habit is. has not gone out Of her
way TO be kind; she has made no use
of the material latent in the vast
body: Evolution at her dictation has
held his hand and the "Thino'' remains
the stereotyped relic Of bygone age,
when still stranger creatures browsed
along the waters of a tropic Thames,
when the mighty SUBMITS Of kiliman-
jaro and of Kenia we're not conceived,
of a time when the sole condition to
survival was impermeablity. And i'm
permeability he achieved in those long
past days, achieved it with an abso-
lutte success. achieved it so that no
scheming tricks, no carefully-thought
plan was necessary so that he might
obtain food and water and the van
gushing of his enemies; he was i'm
permeable TO tooth and claw. He was
impermeable, and they Of the tooth
and claw knew it, He was absolutely
safe. and in that safety the brain stag
mated, and Evolution stood back and
waited while the "rhino" encompassed
his death warrant.
Like Black Ridge.
You see him afar off, massive and
aggressive, storming through the grass
like great battleship through the
ripple Of a summers sea; you watch
him fidgeting from side to side in
some chosen spot, long since worn
saucer-lke with the scraping feet, or
are suddenly aware of his huge bulk
appraised Ride across the plain, your
"safari," q long black line of porters,
the team of oxen, a notified patch on
see, a few hundred yards away, a
black ridge of somewhat unfamiliar
aspect, or, more probably be aroused
from the semisomnolence born of
monotony by cries of Faro" from
your men. That rather long black
ridge. like and yet not quite like an
ant-hill, surmounted by a row of birds
that is your "rhino." There he lies,
sleeping through the long hot hours,
a solitary beast in the open plain of
dry golden grass. Unknown to your
self. you have crossed the wind of the
sleeper, and the faintly-caught smell,
unfamiliar and pregnant with alarm,
brings him to his feet to stand alert,
each move of the massive body and
appraised head eloquent of disgust and
resentment. He has you; 500 odd
yards away, yet he has you. The I'M
wieldly parallelogram of flesh, which
gave you your chance for a comfort
able shot. zigzags in rapid spasmodic
runs to and fro, across the plain, ever
working up-wind, running now to this
hand. now to that, and, as the scent
strengthens with every tack, nearing
you rapidly, looking less unwieldy,
more agile at each advance. Now,
now he has you with a vengeance.
Straight at you he comes, galloplng
like a gigantic pig, and-you sigh too
late for your comfortable shot. Or,
perchance, his sole asset, his nose,
proves unequal to the task of locat-
ing the seat of the disturbance, and
forthwith anger surges within his vast
frame. You stanc and watch, not, il
must be confessed, il you are new to
TO the manners of the "rhino," with
out some tirse of anxiety.
His Chase unaValllng.
But this time there is to be no
charge and no hasty firing of shots in
the hope of turning, or of killing, the
enemy. He sees an ostrich, and the
sight of the bird serves as vent for
his illconsidered spleen. OF he goes
in chase, full tilt, for half mile OF
more. the biped complacently trottine
on before (can II be that an ostrich
has a sense of humor?), merely glane
ing over his wing now and again, care
fully keeping distance. Soon II dawns
on him that the thing in front he dim
ly sees has not that faintly-caught but
evil SMELL this idle chase grows wear