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Updated: July 18, 2025
This difficulty may, however, be obviated according to Sir SAMUEL BAKER by firing half-pound shells from the shoulder, with a rifle of proportionate size, and if the Sporting Bulletins of that enterprising traveller are not shots with the long bow, he carried the war into Africa to some purpose, not unfrequently bagging his Baker's dozen of Rhinoceroses in the course of forty-eight hours.
At the stops for water or for orders the passengers gather from their different compartments to detail excitedly to each other what they have seen. There is always an honest superenthusiast who believes he has seen rhinoceroses, lions, or leopards. He is looked upon with envy by the credulous, and with exasperation by all others. So the little train puffs and tugs along.
At the head of these was a one-humped camel with white hair, one of the first which they had caught in the desert, next two rhinoceroses, a herd of horses, and a tame lion caged. Then a multitude of cages holding birds of various colors, monkeys, and small dogs intended for court ladies. Behind them were driven great herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep as food for the pharaoh's army.
He had to tell me his adventures, and I had to tell him how I had found him out. In the afternoon we were again on foot, pushing on as rapidly as before. We saw elephants and rhinoceroses and several lions, but while we were moving on none of them appeared inclined to attack us. At night we rested with large fires in front of us, and a tall tree with some thick stakes at our backs.
Among living rhinoceroses the Indian species have these two front teeth, but smaller, whilst the square-mouthed African rhinoceros has none at all! This helps us, as a parallel, to understand "the strange case" of Myotragus. But, of course, the rhinoceroses are a distinct line of animal descent remote from Ruminants.
Beautiful horses, huge elephants and comical monkeys; rhinoceroses and buffaloes adorned with housings and tassels; double-humped Bactrian camels with gold collars on their shaggy necks; waggon-loads of rare woods and ivory, woven goods of exquisite texture, casks of ingots and gold-dust, gold and silver vessels, rare plants for the royal gardens, and foreign animals for the preserves, the most remarkable of which were antelopes, zebras, and rare monkeys and birds, these last being tethered to a tree in full leaf and fluttering among the branches.
"What is your trade?" asked Tom curiously, for he had noted that the man, while aged, was rugged and hearty, and his skin was tanned a leathery brown, showing that he was much in the open air. "I'm a hunter," was the reply, "a hunter of big game, principally elephants, hippos and rhinoceroses. I've just finished a season in Africa, and I'm going back there again soon.
I wonder what brought you two fellows out here, and I doubt much whether you'll like the country now you have come. It's a mighty fine one, there's no doubt about that, for those who have a fancy for a wild life, and shooting rhinoceroses and buffaloes, not to speak of elephants and lions," exclaimed Denis.
For example, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the large mammals are at present rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, elephants, lions, tigers, oxen, horses, &c.; and if you examine the newest tertiary deposits, which contain the animals and plants which immediately preceded those which now exist in the same country, you do not find gigantic specimens of ant-eaters and kangaroos, but you find rhinoceroses, elephants, lions, tigers, &c., of different species to those now living but still their close allies.
To the south Saigon is the most important town; it is situated in the Mekong delta, which is increasing in size every year by the addition of the vast quantities of silt carried down by the great river. The country abounds in wild animals, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, alligators, poisonous snakes, monkeys, parrots, and peacocks.
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