IN THE JUNGLE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 10

IN THE JUNGLE.

A CONSERVATIVE RHINOCEROS. The etiquette to be adopted when a tourist meets a lion in the jungle is described humorously by Sir Frederick Treves, the famous surgeon, in his fifth book of general interest, which is entitled "Uganda for a Holiday." Sir Frederick explains in his preface that he visited this part of Africa with the outlook of an "unspecialioed traveller" — of the man who merely seeks "somewhere to go to." Sir Frederick Treves haa several things to say about the animals of the wild. "The •rhinoceros is the embodiment of blind conservatism," he writes. "Its hide is impenetrable, its vision is weak, while itb intellect is weaker. It has, however, two marked qualities— combativeness and a sense of smell. Ib is aroused to ite maximum energy by the presence of anything that is new. This object need not be a thing that is aggressive or inconvenient. Its" offensiveness depends upon the fact that it is unfamiliar. "When a rhinoceros smells a man he will chargft nim with maniacal viotenct, although the man may be merely sitting on a «tool reading Milton. The massive beast will dash at him like a torpedo or a runaway locomotive simply because the smell of him is novel. Actuated by this insane hate of whatever savours of an innovation the rhinooeros has charged an iron water tank on the outskirtis of a camp and has crumpled it up as a blacksmith would an empty meat tin. "A conservative rhinoceros with a senile dislike of anything new once charged a train on the Uganda Railway, but with no more serious results Mian the tearing away of -the footboard of a carriage. M regards the rhinoceros in this case, it appeared surpriwd that a thing composed, as it had imagined, of flesh and blood could be so hard. It» went off with an additional grievance aj>d an increased swelling of the head."