I set forth with the guide and two of the sheikh's boys, each
carrying a single rifle, and ensconced myself in the nullah, to
hide until our expected visitors should arrive, and there
remained until midnight. When the hitherto noisy villagers
turned into bed, the silvery moon shed her light on the desolate
scene, and the Mgogo guide, taking fright, bolted. He had not,
however, gone long, when, looming above us, coming over the
horizon line, was the very animal we wanted.

In a fidgety manner the beast then descended, as if he expected
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