Then Down Go The Loads With A Smash, And Up
The Nearest Trees Swarm The Boys.
Usually their refuges are thorn
trees, armed, even on the main trunk, with long sharp spikes.
There is no difficulty in going up, but the gingerly coming down,
after all the excitement has died, is a matter of deliberation
and of voices uplifted in woe.
Cuninghame tells of an inadequate
slender and springy, but solitary, sapling into which swarmed
half his safari on the advent of a rambunctious rhino. The tree
swayed and bent and cracked alarmingly, threatening to dump the
whole lot on the ground. At each crack the boys yelled. This
attracted the rhinoceros, which immediately charged the tree full
tilt. He hit square, the tree shivered and creaked, the boys
wound their arms and legs around the slender support and howled
frantically. Again and again rhinoceros drew back to repeat his
butting of that tree. By the time Cuninghame reached the spot,
the tree, with its despairing burden of black birds, was clinging
to the soil by its last remaining roots.
In the Nairobi Club I met a gentleman with one arm gone at the
shoulder. He told his story in a slightly bored and drawling
voice, picking his words very carefully, and evidently most
occupied with neither understating nor overstating the case. It
seems he had been out, and had killed some sort of a buck. While
his men were occupied with this, he strolled on alone to see what
he could find.
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