"Here is a perfectly peaceful family group including three or four males. I could use my two males without apologies. There is really no necessity for killing another animal."
So the guns were put behind and the camera pushed forward and we had the extreme satisfaction of seeing that band of gorillas disappear over the crest of the opposite ridge none the worse for having met with white men that morning. It was a wonderful finish to a wonderful gorilla hunt. We went on to Burunga for the night and the next day we were at the Mission by noon where we found Thanksgiving dinner waiting for us. The chief mission of the expedition had been successfully culminated, and all of us were together again just in time for a real Thanksgiving.
CHAPTER XIV IS THE GORILLA ALMOST A MAN?
When Herbert Bradley and I started down from Mt. Mikeno to join the ladies of our party at the Mission of the White Friars we had the skeletons, skins, and measurements of four adult gorillas and the mummified carcass and skin of a baby. I had made death masks of them all and likewise some plaster casts of their feet and hands. I also had 300 or 400 feet of film showing wild gorillas in action, and some general observations of the gorilla's habits in the mountains of the Lake Kivu region on the eastern border of the Belgian Congo in Central Africa. I had the material for which I had come to Africa—material sufficient to make a correct group of gorillas for the proposed Roosevelt African Hall of the Museum of Natural History in New York—but I also had a great deal more, a vision of how to study this animal which is man's nearest relative.
As soon as you have anything to do with the gorilla the fascination of studying him begins to grow on you and you instinctively begin to speak of the gorilla as "he" in a human sense, for he is obviously as well as scientifically akin to man.
I have taken some pains in describing my adventures with the gorillas of Mikeno to show that they were not ferocious. I do not believe that they ever are ferocious, nor do I believe that they will ever attack man except when hard pressed and in self-defence. I think I can also explain why the gorilla has his aggressive reputation. I am going to quote one of Paul du Chaillu's adventures[2] with gorillas and in the quotation put in brackets what Du Chaillu felt, leaving outside the brackets what the gorilla did. If you read the tale as Du Chaillu wrote it, it gives an impression that the gorilla is a terrible animal. If you read merely what the gorilla did, you will see that he did nothing that a domestic dog might not have done under the same circumstances.
Then the underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and presently before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through the jungle on his all-fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and looked us [boldly] in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us [and was a sight I think never to forget]. Nearly six feet high (he proved two inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms, with [fiercely glaring] large deep gray eyes [and a hellish expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision]: thus stood before us this king of the African forests.
He was not afraid of us. He stood there, and beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense bass-drum [which is their mode of offering defiance]; meantime giving vent to roar after roar....
[His eyes began to flash fiercer fire as] we stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up and down, while his powerful teeth (fangs) were shown as he again sent forth a thunderous roar. [And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream creature—a being of that hideous order, half man, half beast, which we find pictured by old artists in some representations of the infernal regions.] He advanced a few steps—then stopped to utter that [hideous] roar again—advanced again, and finally stopped when at a distance of about six yards from us. And here, as he began another of his roars and beating his breast [in rage], we fired, and killed him.
With a groan [which had something terribly human in it, and yet was full of brutishness], it fell forward on its face. The body shook convulsively for a few minutes, the limbs moved about in a struggling way, and then all was quiet—death had done its work, and I had leisure to examine the huge body. It proved to be five feet eight inches high, and the muscular development of the arms and breast showed what immense strength it had possessed.
These facts are no doubt accurate. Du Chaillu and his men pursued a gorilla in the forest. When they came too close he roared at them. I have seen little monkeys scold an intruder in similar fashion. His face twitched and he beat his breast. My motion picture shows a gorilla beating her breast when not at all mad. The gorilla advanced on them not in a ferocious rush but hesitatingly a few steps at a time. They shot it.