The Sculptured Rocks.
“Bravo! Dick, old chap,” exclaimed Earle, turning to his friend, with one hand outstretched in offered help while the other grasped a smoking pistol—“well fought! Are you hurt at all?”
“N–o, I think not,” replied Dick, a little doubtfully, as with the help of the other’s proffered hand he scrambled to his feet. “That fellow, there”—pointing to the body of the ape that had hurled him to the ground—“pretty nearly knocked the wind out of me, while the other did his level best to dash my brains out, and I’ve barked my knuckles rather badly against his chin; but otherwise I think I’m all right, thanks. And you?”
“I?” returned Earle. “Oh, I’m as right as rain. Say, Dick, that was something like a scrap at the last. What? Guess if it hadn’t been for old King Cole, we’d have been in rather a tight place. Look at the beggar. Ugh! he is not pleasant to look at when he’s real riled, is he? He has brought off his kill all right, and I guess we’d better leave him to it a bit. I believe I don’t particularly want to interfere with him just now. Let’s draw off a bit and have a look at one of those dead brutes out yonder. I rather want to examine one; for I guess this is an entirely new species of monkey.”
“They look to me very much like gorillas,” remarked Dick.
“They do,” agreed Earle. “But, all the same, they are not gorillas. There are no gorillas on this continent, so far as is known. The gorilla is, I believe, peculiar to Africa. And these creatures, though they certainly somewhat resemble gorillas in a general way, have certain points of difference, the most important of which is the shape of the skull, while another is their much greater bulk. I have shot several gorillas; but I never saw one to come near any of these brutes in point of size. By the way, where is the one you stopped with a broken leg? We may as well put him out of his misery.”
The creature in question was nowhere to be seen; but they eventually got upon his trail and followed him up to the border of the forest, into which he had evidently retreated; and they came to the conclusion that, as he had contrived to get thus far, they would leave him alone and give him a chance to recover. Then they found one of the dead apes, and Earle subjected the carcass to a long and exhaustive examination, making copious notes and discoursing learnedly meanwhile, though it is to be feared that his remarks and explanations left Dick but little the wiser. It was close upon sunset when at length they returned to the camp, where they were shortly afterward joined by King Cole, once more calm and in his right mind.
They took the precaution to surround the camp with a circle of fires that night, to ward off a possible attack, posting a sentinel at each fire for the double purpose of keeping it going and maintaining a watch.
The belt of forest which the explorers entered on the following day proved to be of no very great extent, the passage through it occupying but a day and a half. Emerging from it, the party crossed a splendid savannah, abounding in game, chiefly of the antelope variety, and large birds somewhat resembling bustard, the tameness of which seemed to indicate that man was practically unknown to them, while it enabled them to replenish their larder with the utmost ease. This savannah extended for a distance of about ten miles, and terminated among the foothills of a range of mountains of very moderate height stretching right athwart the path of the explorers. Among those foothills the party pitched their camp at the end of the day’s journey.
The next day’s march conducted them into country the character of which was different from any hitherto traversed by them. It was exceedingly rugged and broken, treeless, the soil covered with a short, rich grass, which would have rendered it ideal as grazing country, dotted here and there with small clumps of bush, some of which were fruit-bearing, while at frequent intervals great outcrops of metamorphic rock were met with, which time and weather had in many cases wrought into extraordinary shapes.