Such is a specimen of the “sport” which the wilds of Africa offer to the ambitious hunter. That it is in some respects rather serious sport may be imagined from the description as well as from Mr. Cumming’s statement of his losses during his four expeditions into the interior. These were forty-five horses and seventy head of cattle, the value being at least $3,000. “I also,” he says, “lost about seventy of my dogs,” which would convey the idea of a considerable kennel, the dogs all told. But he usually had only about thirty at a time. Many were killed by lions, while elephants made way with a still larger number.
The expeditions of Mr. Du Chaillu, an American naturalist, in Equatorial Africa, were more valuable to the cause of science than those of Mr. Cumming in South Africa, and scarcely less interesting as the explorations of a hunter. Like Cumming, he was a highly successful hunter, and he was also much more—a student of natural history imbued with a love of science and having a genius for it. As Mr. Cumming’s starting point was the extreme of South Africa, under English domination, Mr. Du Chaillu had his headquarters beneath the equator on the west coast, and under the immediate eyesight, so to speak, of the American Presbyterian Mission for the Gaboon country. Mr. Du Chaillu afterwards established his home in the Camma country, and building himself a little village of huts near the junction of the N’poulounay and Fernand Vas rivers, and not far from the coast, named it “Washington.” From the Gaboon and then from this African “city of Washington,” this celebrated traveller made several explorations of the interior, much of the time among idolatrous and cannibal tribes. Enduring many hardships, overcoming many almost insurmountable difficulties, he not only gave to the world an extremely interesting account of hunting expeditions but a description of the singular people and wonderful country he was the first white man to visit which forms a valued acquisition to the stock of geographical and scientific knowledge.[7]
[7] It need not be stated to students of matters pertaining to Africa, that this gentleman’s “Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa” (published by the Harpers in 1868) is one of our most interesting books of travel.
Whilst he was very successful in procuring specimens of most of the animals and birds in equatorial Africa to a distance of several hundred miles from the coast, he devoted special attention to hunting the ape, and was more successful in killing the species commonly known as the gorilla than any one else of Christendom has ever been. The greater difficulty of hunting the animal considered, he was as successful with the gorilla as Mr. Cumming had been with the elephant.
The troglodytes gorilla, or great chimpanzee of the equatorial region of West Africa has long been the most dreaded, perhaps, of all the wild beasts of that continent. And it is probably true that in unmixed ferocity when assailed he does not have his equal. The nature of this fierce animal—much like man in some particulars of physical formation, totally dissimilar in all other respects—may be learned from an instance or two of Mr. Du Chaillu’s hunting him. The account of his killing his “first gorilla” is as follows:
“We started early and pushed for the most dense and impenetrable part of the forest (this was in the country of the Fan negroes, cannibals, a little more than one degree north of the equator and something less than two hundred miles east of the mouth of the Gaboon river), in hopes to find the very home of the beast I so much wished to shoot. Hour after hour we travelled, and yet no signs of gorilla. Only the everlasting little chattering monkeys—and not many of these—and occasional birds. In fact, the forests of this part of Africa are not so full of life as in some other parts to the south.
“Suddenly Miengai uttered a little cluck with his tongue, which is the native’s way of showing that something is stirring, and that a sharp look-out is necessary. And presently I noticed, ahead of us seemingly, a noise as of some one breaking down branches or twigs of trees. This was the gorilla, I knew at once, by the eager and satisfied looks of the men. They looked once more carefully at their guns, to see if by any chance the powder had fallen out of the pans; I also examined mine, to make sure that all were right; and then we marched on cautiously. The singular noise of the breaking of tree-branches continued. We walked with the greatest care, making no noise at all. The countenances of the men showed that they thought themselves engaged in a very serious undertaking; but we pushed on, until finally we thought we saw through the thick woods the moving of the branches and small trees which the great beast was tearing down, probably to get from them the berries and fruits he lives on.
“Suddenly, as we were yet creeping along, in a silence which made a heavy breath seem loud and distinct, the woods were at once filled with the tremendous barking roar of the gorilla. Then the under-brush 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.
“The roar of the gorilla is the most singular and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins with a sharp bark, like an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll, which literally and closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along the sky, for which I have sometimes been tempted to take it where I did not see the animal. So deep is it that it seems to proceed less from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast paunch.