two hours afterwards, though I do not regret the "kick" in surveying
the water-buffalo which has hung now in my hall for thirty years. I
have only seen two wild rhinoceroses in my life, and of the first one
I had only a very brief glimpse. We were outside the swamp, when down
a jungle-track came a charging rhinoceros, his head down and an evil
look in his eye. One look was enough for Chota Begum. That most
respectable of old ladies had quite evidently no love for rhinos. She
lost her nerve completely, and ran away for two miles as hard as her
ungainly limbs could lay leg to the ground. It is no joke to be on a
runaway elephant maddened with fright, and it is extremely difficult
to keep one's seat. The mahout and I hung on with both hands for dear
life, the guns and rifles crashing together with a deafening clamour
of ironmongery, and I was most thankful that there were no trees
anywhere near, for the terrified animal's first impulse would have
been to knock off both howdah and mahout under the overhanging branch
of a tree. When Chota Begum at length pulled up, she had to listen to
some terrible home-truths about her ancestry from the mahout, who was
bitterly disappointed in his beloved charge. As to questions of
lineage, and the morals of Chota Begum's immediate progenitors, I can
only hope that the mahout exaggerated, for he certainly opened up
appalling perspectives. Any old lady would have got scared at seeing
so hideous a monster preparing to rip her open, and under the
circumstances you and I would have run away just as fast as Chota
Begum did.

The only other wild rhinoceros I ever saw was on the very last day of
our stay in Assam. We were returning home on elephants, when they
began to trumpet loudly, as we approached a little dip. My nephew,
General Sir Henry Streatfeild, called out to me to be ready, as there
was probably a bear in the hollow. Next moment a rhinoceros charged