This event occurred one night when I was woken up by the sound of dogs barking. A barking of such a sort was an indicator that a dangerous animal was in proximity of the village. After waking up I was still rubbing my eyes when the ground started trembling and the sound of running rhinoceros and the loud noises coming from their mouths was heard .The next morning when I tried to investigate the mystery of the late night noises I discovered the footsteps of the pachyderm (rhinoceros) that I had heard at night. Without wasting any time I gathered together a search party to find out more about the pachyderm (rhinoceros). The three people along with me were barefooted while I was wearing rubber shoes. The hearing sense of pachyderm (rhinoceros) is incredible and they are alerted by the slightest of sounds. The benefit of rubber shoes was that the brief sound of my stepping on fallen branches or stones alerted me to step carefully the next time. Suddenly we all heard a voice of an animal which left us motionless. For 10 minutes we stood motionless and it was confirmed that this animal was really a pachyderm (rhinoceros) that was eating branches and leaves.
We were concerned that the slightest sound would alert the pachyderm (rhinoceros). So we moved in small steps while stopping to check that the pachyderm (rhinoceros) continued its meal. When this voice stopped we too paused in fear and upon looking through the branches we saw the pachyderm (rhinoceros) whose ears were trying to catch some sound. The manner in which he was standing amongst the bushes was not feasible for us to fire on him. A few minutes passed like this and my companions become impatient since they were accustomed to a swift hunt. Small birds were fighting on the back of the rhinoceros and hitting it with their beaks. The skin of a rhinoceros is so hard and thick that it does not feel the presence of the birds on its body. These birds eat the small insects found on the rhinoceros and they offer an advantage by noticing any predator since the sight of a rhinoceros is not very good, something which is solved by having birds nearby. Since these very birds noticed us watching the rhinoceros intently they flew over to us and began to chirp loudly as if signalling the rhinoceros of our presence and when it began to move towards us we steadied our rifles in wait. When the distance that separated us was only 10 meters away it finally saw us and it could be judged from the way it stopped altogether that it was not in a mood to fight. But it did not have enough sense to run back into the trees and so it stomped its front feet and leapt forward to attack us. At that moment I let go the trigger and the bullet pierced through the side of the rhinoceros; it fell down for a while but stood back on its feet again. Once again it leapt forth to attack and I shouted at my partners to fire at the animal and soon enough the bullets caused the rhinoceros to stagger and fall to its death. The thick skin of the animal had been pierced at many places with bullets and suddenly there was a large group of people arriving with long blades in hand causing a commotion in their haste to get hold of the meat. This meat of the dead animal for those starving people living in the wild was not less than any blessing and while I tried to stop these people but none listened and soon enough there was nothing left except the thick blood and bones of the dead animal. All of the people distributed the meat amongst themselves and the snatching went on for quite some time.
