December PeGU^ar t0 the Hottentot nation, which feveral colonifts had told me of, and I myfelf have like wife experienced. When, for inftance, any thing remarkable happens, a Hottentot endeavours -to avoid, if he can, mentioning it for fome days; and when at length he does fpeak of it, it is with a kind of circumlocution, or, as the colonifts call it, with a draij, a fort of twift or winding. And indeed, for the moil part, the Hottentot comes out with his intelligence fo late, that inftead of being of any ufe, it ferves only to vex one. In the mean time, however, I was extremely well pleafed with the news o f the rhinocerofes being ihot; and only wiihed that my Hottentots had been fo kind as to have told me in time, that I might have gone back with them and feen the animals alive. However, I have had an opportunity o f this kind feveral times ilnce. On the 20th betimes in the morning, Mr. Im m e l m a n and I rode to the fpot where the rhinocerofes lay, and were attended by four of our Hottentots. .In our road we faw a great many quaggas and hartbee/ls, and at the fame time chafed a wood-fwme, hut chiefly fpent our time in reconnoitring a herd of elk-antilopes (antilope oryx, Vol. IL Elate I.) fo that we did not arrive at the ipot where the rhinocerofes .lay till ten o’clock. - It was about the fame time the day before that thefe beafts were killed, each o f them with one Angle ihot, which penetrated .into the very middle of their lungs. They lay at the diftance o f about a mile from each other, ■both o f them being proftrate on their belly and knees, with their hind legs brought forwards, and fupporting Their bodies on each fide.. The firft thing I did was to draw •draw and take the dimenfions o f the lefler of thefe animals *77S- in this pofition, which I afterwards, from feveral others that I had an opportunity o f feeing alive, altered to the attitude o f walking. In order the .more readily to form an idea o f the ihape o f this animal, and the mutual proportion o f its parts, the reader may turn to the figure annexed in Plate III. Vol. II. To this purpofe he muft reprefent to himfelf the lefler o f thefe beafts, eleven feet and a half long, feven feet high, and twelve feet in the girt. And when befides this he confiders, that, with refpedt to fize, it ranks among four- footed animals the third from the elephant; and, excepting the horns, has been hitherto abfolutely unknown, with other circumftances which will eafily occur to his refledtion, he will, perhaps, in fome meafure, be able to conceive, what a feaft the fight and examination o f this creature muft . have been to a naturalift. The circumftance which firft and chiefly excited my attention was, that in the hide of this beaft there were none o f thofe plaits and folds, which we find in the defcrip- tions and figures publiihed o f the rhinoceros bicornis, and which give it the appearance o f being covered with a har- nefs. I t ’ was only on the hide of the lefler o f thefe animals that we could obferve a fmall fold or plait, and that merely at the nape o f the neck; but this feemed to proceed from the pofition that we found it in, viz. with the head leaning againft the ground, by which means it was carried fomewhat backwards. Confidering it in other refpedts, the hide was half an inch thick on the back, but fomewhat thicker on the fides,. Vo l . II. o though
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