About this time the chasm filled with a fog so dense that we could not move with safety. Another half hour and the fog was cleared by a heavy cold rain and hail and we continued to search for a way down to the dead gorilla. The Negroes had worked earnestly, but they gave up and said it could not be done. Poor devils, they were stark naked in that icy rain; God knows how they lived through it. When they gave up they gave up for good apparently, stood shaking with cold, making no effort to find shelter from the rain. I took off my Burberry raincoat and got seven of them under it with me.
In such proximity to seven naked natives almost all of my senses were considerably oppressed and I was grateful when the rain lessened so that I might put them at a more respectful as well as a more comfortable distance. The others had huddled under an old tree root. All came out and we looked over the situation. We were on the side of a ridge of Mikeno. Where we were there was vegetation and a fair foothold. Below and above us were stretches of sheer rock. Not far from us a little stream fell off the shelf where we were, in a clear fall of 200 feet. The gorilla was somewhere near the bottom of that fall. The natives insisted that it was impossible to get to the dead animal. To go straight down was impossible. But I felt that there might be a chance to work along sideways in a patch of vegetation until we could get down to a lower level. By working back and forth on the face of the mountain side in this way I hoped to reach the dead gorilla. However, I soon realized that if I wanted to try this somewhat hazardous experiment I should have to lead the way, for the blacks had nothing greater than a few days' wages at stake while I had one of the prizes of a long and expensive expedition. So I swung down on the overhanging roots of a tree and began the descent with the natives following. It took a surprisingly long time for us to get down the 200 feet, and it finally turned out that the route that I took led off to one side where I could not reach the gorilla when I had descended to her level. Twenty or thirty feet farther down I managed to cross to the stream-bed and then went up the stream to the bottom of the falls and from there to where the body lay. Where the stream-bed was steepest, we literally had the water falling on our heads as we scrambled up.
It was a tough job skinning and skeletonizing her. In the first place, I was tired and she was heavy, and in the second place if she was turned over with anything but the utmost care she was likely to roll off down into the chasm below. Nor could I get much assistance from the boys, for there was only room enough for a man or two to help. However, in some manner we managed a satisfactory job in everything but one particular. The camera boy had come down but the tripod carrier never appeared. If it had been an ordinary camera the loss of the tripod would have made little difference, but it was the moving-picture camera, and a moving-picture camera without a tripod is useless.
It was well past mid-afternoon when the skin and bones were ready to move to camp.
As I worked I had kept wondering how we were ever to get up out of the chasm, especially with the added burdens we had acquired. I am still wondering how we did get out. The "human fly" was no more remarkable than those black boys. My heart was in my mouth for an hour watching them work their way up the almost perpendicular wall of that chasm with the skin and skeleton. We got to camp just before dark in a pouring rain, and I am free to confess that during the last hour I several times doubted if I should get in. It was beyond doubt the toughest day I ever spent. Never again—not for all the gorillas and museums in the world. I spent the next day in camp working on the two specimens—the female and the baby that had been speared—and finally had three beautiful gorilla skins all safe under the fly of my tent. They were so well assorted that they would make a very satisfactory group if I got no more. I had death masks of each and skeletons of the two old ones; but the four-year-old, a vigorous young male, I skinned with infinite care and preserved the entire carcass with formalin and salt—a precious anatomical record for sculptural and taxidermic use.
The gun boys and guides came the following morning and said they were going home. It took an hour, money, and many promises to make them change their minds. Heaven knows I did not blame them. I would not do what they had done for money.
However, I did not start again. Although I had worked one whole day on the last two gorillas I had some things still to do and I felt that with enough material on hand for a good group even if I got no more I could go a bit easier. So I stayed in camp another day and planned a gorilla hunt for the moving-picture camera. On the side hills where we had been hunting there was no possible hope of using a camera so I told the boys if they took me in any such places again I would annihilate them. Not only would it be useless for the camera but I felt that I couldn't stand another such trip myself. So they promised me an easier route, and equipped with photographic outfit we started off in the direction of the Saddle between Mikeno and Karisimbi. It seemed a very stiff climb to me in the beginning, but I have learned since that it was chiefly because of my extreme weakness. Before I had been out an hour I was sorely tempted to return to camp and give it up; but we came upon a fresh trail of a band of gorillas which for some reason or other the guides followed only a short distance, continuing on in the same general direction in which we had started, without any encouragement, until it seemed that we had gone to the crest of the Saddle. There, as the result of a conference between the guides, we started in a southerly direction intending to work in a roundabout way back to camp. Camp was the only thing that I was interested in, for at this time I was practically "done."
Ten minutes later the guides ducked, and crouching, came back and fell in behind me. I took the gun from the bearer, and looking over the tops of the greenery of a little rise in front of us I saw a spot of black fur perhaps fifty yards ahead. As I crouched, waiting for a better view, the animal I was watching climbed up on a nearly horizontal branch of a tree looking back in my direction. In the meantime, the motion-picture camera had been brought to my side. I raised it carefully, put it in position, and all this time another larger gorilla was making the ascent of the horizontal branch of the tree. It was apparently an old mother and her two-year-old baby. Almost before I knew it I was turning the crank of the camera on two gorillas in full view with a beautiful setting behind them. I do not think at the time that I appreciated the fact that I was doing a thing that had never been done before. As I ground away, a second baby came scrambling up a near-by tree. The baby seemed very much interested in the operation. The mother professed indifference and a certain amount of boredom and after a bit pretended to lie down on one arm and go to sleep. The babies, one of them at least, seemed to be amused. He would stand up, fold his arms and slap them against his breast, which suggested uproarious laughter on his part.
When I had turned off about one hundred feet with my heart in my mouth for fear the thing would come to an end too soon, I realized that I had as much of that particular subject as I wanted, there being no great amount of movement. So I changed the two-inch lens for the six-inch lens in order to make a "closeup." When I had taken about three hundred feet I felt that I would like a change of scene; so with my hand on the camera I stood up straight and tried to start a conversation with them. They all bolted.
It was amazing what an effect that minute or two of experience had on me physically. I forgot my weariness and took up the trail. For the next hour we followed them, getting glimpses of them frequently. There were probably ten or twelve in the band; but never again did I get the opportunity to photograph them—just little glimpses of black fur dodging about through the greenery. At one time with my glasses I watched them across a ravine for a considerable time. The old female was lying down on her back yawning and stretching, but she was too far away for a photograph. So finally, feeling that I had about all I could expect from that band, I picked out one that I thought to be an immature male. I shot and killed it and found, much to my regret, that it was a female. As it turned out, however, she was such a splendid large specimen that the feeling of regret was considerably lessened. This female had a baby which was hustled off by the rest of the band. The baby was crying piteously as it went.