In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

We set out in the same direction as on the previous hunt. In the woods on these mountain sides the ground growth is extremely thick, and as high up as we went there were no elephant or other paths. It was necessary to go through the woods. The natives' method of travelling is to cut a trail as they proceed. They used a hooked knife of great effectiveness with which to cut the undergrowth. The stuff is thick enough to impede one's progress, but far worse than that it is filled with nettles, so that unless it is cut out in this way one is constantly and unmercifully stung. That is bad enough for a white man who is clothed, but is even worse for the blacks who wear nothing to protect them. Nevertheless, cutting as they go, the natives make pretty good time, perhaps two miles an hour up hill and down. Anyway, I found that I had all I could do to keep up with them; weak as I was, I had frequently to slow them down.

In this way we had passed over several ridges when we came on the trail of a band of gorillas. The trail they make is plain enough, for the undergrowth is so thick that each of the animals leaves a kind of swath of bent and broken greenery. Their trail led us along the side of a steep slope, so steep that every move had to be made with caution. If the gorilla was in the habit of travelling either far or fast, catching up with him in this country would be a heart-breaking if not an impossible task. But I believe the gorilla normally travels only from three to five miles a day. He loafs along through the forest, eating as he goes. As the trail we found was fresh it was likely that the gorillas were not far away. And so it turned out. We had followed for perhaps an hour when a dislodged rock thundering down into the chasm about two hundred yards ahead of us gave a clue to their whereabouts, and so we sat tight and soon located them by moving bushes, across a bit of a bay formed by a curve of the ridge. There I saw a big female and very foolishly tried a shot with the Springfield. I suppose in justification of my lack of faith in the thing it missed fire twice and by the time I got the big gun in hand the female had disappeared and a big silver-backed male was in sight.

He was about 150 yards away. He was just disappearing when I got the big gun to my shoulder and I had to shoot quickly. I fired and missed. They disappeared, and I fully appreciated what an ass I had been. We scrambled on for an hour more—the hillside becoming higher and more precipitous every minute. At last a slight movement of the bush above made us aware of their presence.

The fact that we came up with them again after my shooting was pretty good evidence that even when disturbed the gorilla does not travel either far or fast. The experience I had had with my first gorilla two days before corroborated this. He had, in fact, run only about 300 yards after first seeing us before stopping. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that the gorilla can run fast. Unlike animals that catch others for food, the gorilla, who eats vegetation, does not have to run for his dinner. Neither does he have to run to escape serving as dinner for some other animals. His legs, compared to his weight, are small and, in relation to man's, very short. On fair footing I think the average man could outrun a gorilla.

Where we came in sight of this band there was no friendly tree to lean against as there had been in the case of the first gorilla. The hillside was so steep that it was difficult to find footing from which to shoot. For a slight sense of security I entangled myself in a bush and stood ready to shoot.

There was not the straight drop of the other day but a steep slope which could be done on all fours—for twenty feet—and then straight down two hundred feet. I got a fair sight of an old black female and it looked as though the bushes she was in would hold her if I killed her instantly. She was fifty feet away. I fired and she came exactly as the other one had—the slope was so steep it was practically a fall—and straight at me. I tried to dodge but could not as the recoil of the gun had caused me to lose my balance a bit and I could not recover in time. I threw myself flat, face down, just in time and she passed over me. It was so steep and the mass of green stuff going with her so softened things that I merely felt her—there was no perceptible shock, but when I got up I had a great welt on the top of my head which she had caused. As I partially rose there seemed to be an avalanche of gorillas. There was a big ball of black fur, squealing madly, rolling past—actually touching me—in the wake of the old one. I took a shot at it as it went over, and, by the time I had recovered and reloaded, two others that had been close by had disappeared.

I believe that to be the fastest charge ever made by a gorilla against man. I think it was pushed home with more abandon than any other on record. I am almost certain of these two statements, the particular reason for my certainty being that the gorilla, when she charged or more correctly speaking fell down the hill, was dead and she couldn't have any of the hesitations which I believe prevent such charges by live gorillas. The others followed her not in anger but in fear and because they accepted her lead without realizing that it was involuntary. If their charge had been aimed at me they had plenty of time to knock me off the mountain side before I could get up and shoot again, and the Negroes, being armed only with spears and hanging on a precipitous slope, were almost as defenceless.

I began to feel a good deal of confidence in my theory that the gorilla is not a ferocious beast, although I was gaining the utmost respect for his size and power. If being molested by man would make gorillas ferocious and aggressive, these animals should have been excessively dangerous, for within a very short time the Prince of Sweden had shot fourteen of them, and Barnes had killed several more. The very animals that I followed had probably heard the guns of these other men. Yet I could see no signs of ferocity. When I came up with the old male that I had killed first, he had run back and forth on the hillside barking in protest or surprise at my intrusion just as I have seen little monkeys run back and forth on a limb and bark; but of his having savage intentions against me I saw no sign. Of the two I was the savage and the aggressor. In the case of the female I had just shot, the same was true, even though she was accompanied by her baby. She evidently preferred to get away if possible. Cornered, I think and hope she would fight for her young.

What became of the last two animals I do not know. The black fur ball that I had fired at was, I believe, the four-year-old son of the old female. He apparently caught on somewhere, for a half hour later when we were trying to find a way down we came across him and, as he ran about, one of the guides speared him. I came up before he was dead. There was a heartbreaking expression of piteous pleading on his face. He would have come to my arms for comfort.