To me the gorilla made a much more interesting quarry than lions, elephants, or any of the other African game, for the gorilla is still comparatively little known. Not many people have shot gorillas and almost none have studied them in their native habitat. The gorilla is one of the most remarkable and least known large animals in the world, and when is added to that the fact that he is the nearest to man of any other member of the animal kingdom, a gorilla expedition acquires a tremendous fascination.
An Englishman named Battell—a captive of the Portuguese of Angola—in 1590 described an animal which in all probability was the gorilla. Vague stories from other sources appeared in travellers' accounts, but no real description of the gorilla came to Europe or America until December, 1847, when Dr. Thomas S. Savage, a missionary, published a paper in the Boston Journal of Natural History. Doctor Savage was detained in April of that year at a mission on the Gaboon River in West Africa and there made his discovery. He did not see a live gorilla himself, but from skulls and information brought him by natives, made a rather remarkable description of the animals, part of which is as follows:
Its height is above five feet, it is disproportionately broad across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the Engé-eco (the chimpanzee). With age it becomes gray, which fact has given rise to the report that both animals are seen of different colors....
Their gait is shuffling, the motion of the body, which is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than those of the chimpanzee it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal it makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground and then giving the body a half jumping, half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not to flex the fingers as does the chimpanzee, resting on the knuckles, but to extend them, thus making a fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes the walking posture to which it is said to be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing the arms upward. They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the chimpanzees; the females generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants all agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band; that when the young males grow up a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the community. The silly stories about their carrying off women from the native towns, and vanquishing the elephants, related by voyagers and widely copied into books, are unhesitatingly denied. They have been averred of the chimpanzee, but this is still more preposterous. They probably had their origin in the marvelous accounts given by the natives, of the Engé-ena, to credulous traders.
Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of the chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches supported by the crotches and limbs of trees; they afford no shelter, and are occupied only at night.
They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, never running from man as does the chimpanzee. They are objects of terror to the natives, and are never encountered by them except on the defensive. The few that have been captured were killed by elephant hunters and native traders as they came suddenly upon them while passing through the forests.
It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh-ah! kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and scalp is contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of indescribable ferocity. The females and young at the first cry quickly disappear; he then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun extended: if his aim is not sure he permits the animal to grasp the barrel and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he fires; should the gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of an ordinary musket, which is thin) is crushed between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to the hunter.
The killing of an Engé-ena (gorilla) is considered an act of great skill and courage, and brings the victor signal honor. A slave to an Mpongwe man, from an interior tribe, killed the male and female whose bones are the origin of this article. On one occasion he had succeeded in killing an elephant, and returning home met a male Engé-ena, and being a good marksman he soon brought him to the ground. He had not proceeded far before the female was observed, which he also killed. This act, unheard of before, was considered almost superhuman. The man's freedom was immediately granted to him, and his name proclaimed abroad as the prince of hunters.
Eight years afterward the first white man killed a gorilla. In 1855 Paul Du Chaillu, a French-American, went to West Africa after gorillas. To our party, with the intention of not only shooting gorillas but of studying them and taking moving pictures of them, the narrative of this intrepid little hunter had particular fascination.
On the day that Du Chaillu saw the first gorilla ever seen by a white man his black and savage attendants had assuaged a hunger that beset the party by eating a snake. This was more than Du Chaillu could do. His account[1] reads:
When the snake was eaten, and I, the only empty-stomached individual of the company, had sufficiently reflected on the disadvantages of being bred in a Christian country, we began to look about the ruins of the village near which we sat. A degenerate kind of sugar-cane was growing on the very spot where the houses had formerly stood, and I made haste to pluck some of this and chew it for the little sweetness it had. But, as we were plucking, my men perceived what instantly threw us all into the greatest excitement. Here and there the cane was beaten down, torn up by the roots, and lying about in fragments which had evidently been chewed.
I knew that these were fresh tracks of the gorilla, and joy filled my heart. My men looked at each other in silence, and muttered Nguyla, which is as much as to say in Mpongwe, Ngina, or, as we say, gorilla.
We followed these traces, and presently came to the footprints of the so-long-desired animal. It was the first time I had ever seen these footprints, and my sensations were indescribable. Here was I now, it seemed, on the point of meeting face to face that monster of whose ferocity, strength, and cunning the natives had told me so much; an animal scarce known to the civilized world, and which no white man before had hunted. My heart beat till I feared its loud pulsations would alarm the gorilla, and my feelings were really excited to a painful degree.
By the tracks it was easy to know that there must have been several gorillas in company. We prepared at once to follow them.
The women were terrified, poor things, and we left them a good escort of two or three men to take care of them and reassure them. Then the rest of us looked once more carefully at our guns—for the gorilla gives you no time to reload, and woe to him whom he attacks! We were armed to the teeth. My men were remarkably silent, for they were going on an expedition of more than usual risk; for the male gorilla is literally the king of the African forest. He and the crested lion of Mount Atlas are the two fiercest and strongest beasts of this continent. The lion of South Africa cannot compare with either for strength or courage.
As we left the camp, the men and women left behind crowded together, with fear written on their faces. Miengai, Makinda, and Ngolai set out in one party, and myself and Yeava formed another, for the hunt. We determined to keep near each other, that in emergency we might be at hand to help each other. And for the rest, silence and a sure aim were the only cautions to be given.
As we followed the tracks we could easily see that there were four or five of them; though none appeared very large. We saw where they had run along on all fours, the usual mode of progression of these animals, and where from time to time they had seated themselves to chew the canes they had borne off. The chase began to be very exciting.
We had agreed to return to the women and their guards, and consult upon final operations, when we should have discovered their probable course; and this was now done. To make sure of not alarming our prey, we moved the whole party forward a little way to where some leafy huts, built by passing traders, served for shelter and concealment. And having here bestowed the women—who have a lively fear of the terrible gorilla, in consequence of various stories current among the tribes, of women having been carried off into the woods by the fierce animal—we prepared once more to set out in chase, this time hopeful to catch a shot.
Looking once more to our guns, we started off. I confess that I never was more excited in my life. For years I had heard of the terrible roar of the gorilla, of its vast strength, its fierce courage if, unhappily, only wounded by a shot. I knew that we were about to pit ourselves against an animal which even the tiger of these mountains fears and which, perhaps, has driven the lion out of this territory; for the king of beasts, so numerous elsewhere in Africa, is never met in the land of the gorilla. Thus it was with no little emotion that I now turned again toward the prize at which I had been hoping for years to get a shot.
We descended a hill, crossed a stream on a fallen log, and presently approached some huge boulders of granite. Alongside of this granite block lay an immense dead tree, and about this we saw many evidences of the very recent presence of the gorillas.
Our approach was very cautious. We were divided into two parties. Makinda led one and I the other. We were to surround the granite block behind which Makinda supposed the gorillas to be hiding. Guns cocked and in hand, we advanced through the dense wood, which cast a gloom even in midday over the whole scene. I looked at my men, and saw plainly that they were in even greater excitement than myself.
Slowly we pressed on through the dense brush, fearing almost to breathe for fear of alarming the beasts. Makinda was to go to the right of the rock, while I took the left. Unfortunately, he circled it at too great a distance. The watchful animal saw him. Suddenly I was startled by a strange, discordant, half human, devilish cry, and beheld four young gorillas running toward the deep forests. We fired, but hit nothing. Then we rushed on in pursuit; but they knew the woods better than we. Once I caught a glimpse of one of the animals again, but an intervening tree spoiled my mark, and I did not fire. We ran till we were exhausted, but in vain. The alert beasts made good their escape. When we could pursue no more, we returned slowly to our camp, where the women were anxiously expecting us.
I protest I felt almost like a murderer when I saw the gorillas this first time. As they ran—on their hind legs—they looked fearfully like hairy men; their heads down, their bodies inclined forward, their whole appearance like men running for their lives. Take with this their awful cry, which, fierce and animal as it is, has yet something human in its discordance, and you will cease to wonder that the natives have the wildest superstitions about these "wild men of the woods."
Both Savage and Du Chaillu and all succeeding authorities, including the standard works on natural history, speak of the gorillas as among the most powerful and ferocious animals on earth. And this reputation is so firmly established in the popular mind that our plan of taking ladies with no previous hunting experience of any kind into a gorilla country in Central Africa was looked upon as madness. But to the general theory of the ferocity of wild animals I have never been a convert. And the more I have seen of wild animals in Africa the less I have believed in their ferocity. Consequently, I explained my creed concerning the gorillas in this fashion:
I believe that the gorilla is normally a perfectly amiable and decent creature. I believe that if he attacks man it is because he is being attacked or thinks that he is being attacked. I believe that he will fight in self-defense and probably in defense of his family; that he will keep away from a fight until he is frightened or driven into it. I believe that, although the old male advances when a hunter is approaching a family of gorillas, he will not close in, if the man involved has the courage to stand firm. In other words, his advance will turn out to be what is usually called a bluff.
I believe, however, that the white man who will allow a gorilla to get within ten feet of him without shooting is a plain darn fool, for certainly the average man would have little show in the clutch of a three or four hundred pound gorilla.
My faith in the general amiability and decency of the gorilla is not based on experience or actual knowledge of any sort, but on deductions from the observation of wild animals in general and more particularly of monkeys. There are few animals that deliberately go into fight with an unknown antagonist or with a known antagonist, for that matter, without what seems to them a good reason. In other words, they are not looking for trouble.
The lion will fight when the maintenance of his dignity demands it. Most animals will fight only when driven to it through fear, either for themselves or their young.
The first living gorilla that I ever observed was in the Zoölogical Park in London many years ago. It was very young and its chief aim in life seemed a desire to be loved. This has seemed to be the chief characteristic of the few live gorillas that I have seen in captivity. They appear to have an extremely affectionate disposition and to be passionately fond of the person most closely associated with them; and I think there is no doubt that John Daniel, who died in the Ringling Brothers Circus in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1921, died of a broken heart because he was separated from his mistress. I did not have the pleasure of seeing John Daniel alive; but in death he certainly had the appearance of anything but a savage beast. The above notes are here set down for the purpose of recording the frame of mind with which I am going into the Kivu country to study, photograph, and collect gorillas.
Going as I am, equipped with motion-picture cameras with which one can get motion pictures under most adverse conditions, I am led to hope for something in the way of photographs of live wild gorillas. I hope that I shall have the courage to allow an apparently charging gorilla to come within reasonable distance before shooting. I hesitate to say just what I consider a reasonable distance at the present moment. I shall feel very gratified if I can get a photograph at twenty feet. I should be proud of my nerve if I were able to show a photograph of him at ten feet, but I do not expect to do this unless I am at the moment a victim of suicidal mania.
The rest of the party had the courage of my convictions and with these tenets we set out, men, women, and child to hunt the "ferocious" gorilla in the heart of Africa.