The other remarkable thing was a double row of skulls, running the entire length of the village, set in the ground, leaving the naked, round top glistening in the sun. There were nearly two hundred of them. Amazed, he asked his Arabs what they were, they replied "soko skulls." The soko, Cameron calls a gorilla, and we have no doubt many of the remarkable stories about gorillas refer to this monkey. But Livingstone says it is an animal resembling the gorilla, and his account of their habits shows they are not the fierce, fearless gorilla that is afraid of neither man nor beast. The soko is about four feet ten inches in height, and often walks erect, with his hands resting on his head as if to steady himself. With a yellow face adorned with ugly whiskers, a low forehead and high ears, he looks as if he might be a hideous cross between a man and a beast. His teeth, though dog-like in their size, still slightly resemble those found in the human head. The fingers are almost exactly like the natives. He is cunning and crafty, and will often stalk a man or woman as stealthily as a hunter will a deer. He seldom does much damage, unless driven to bay, when he fights fiercely. He takes great pleasure in nabbing children and carrying them up into a tree and holding them in his arms, but if a bunch of bananas is thrown on the ground he will descend, and leaving the child, will seize it. He seldom uses his teeth, but in conflict with a man he has been known to bite off his opponent's fingers and then let him go. They are hunted and trapped by the natives for their flesh, which is regarded as very good eating.
NATIVES HUNTING SOKOS.
Stanley, not satisfied with the answer of his men concerning the skulls, sent for the chief and asked him whose they were. He said of the sokos, which they hunt because of the destruction they make of the bananas, and that their meat was good. Stanley offered him a hundred cowries if he would bring one to him alive or dead. The chief went into the woods to hunt them, but at evening returned without success. He, however, gave him a portion of what he affirmed to be the skin of one. Stanley had the curiosity to take two of these skulls home with him, and gave them to Professor Huxley to examine, who reported they were the skulls of a man and a woman. Stanley, therefore, came to the conclusion that they were the skulls of men and women who had been eaten by these cannibals. But we do not believe this conclusion fairly justifiable, from Professor Huxley's report on two skulls. In the first place, the Arabs would scarcely have made such a mistake as this implies—they had seen too many soko skulls. In the second place, the chief corroborated their statement, and he had no reason for telling a falsehood. If those skulls were placed thus prominently in the streets, it was to boast of them, not to lie about them. It is far more likely that there were a few human skulls mixed in with the sokos, and that when Stanley asked for a couple, the largest and best-shaped were selected for him which proved to belong to human beings. His hunting for one was certainly not to prove he had told Stanley a falsehood. The same peculiarity was noticed here that Baker mentions of the natives of Fatiko—the women go naked, while the men are partly covered with skins. The whole apparel of the women is an apron four inches square.
On the 19th of March, they reached the Lualaba, sweeping majestically through the silent forest. Stanley immediately determined there should be no more tangled forests for him, but that the broad current of the river should bear him to the Atlantic Ocean or to death. The camp was prepared and the breakfast eaten, while Pocoke was getting the Lady Alice screwed together. Soon she was launched on the stream, amid the huzzas of the party. Although the river here was nearly three-quarters of a mile wide, and the opposite shore appeared like an uninhabited forest, yet sharp eyes detected the wonderful apparition that had appeared on the farther shore, and the news spread so rapidly, that when Stanley in the Lady Alice approached it, he saw the woods alive with human beings, and several canoes tied to the shore. He hailed them, and tried to make a bargain with them to transport his party across. They refused point-blank, but afterwards seemed to relent and offered to exchange blood-brotherhood with them, and appointed a place on a neighboring island where the ceremony should be performed. It was, however, discovered that it was a treacherous plot to murder them, and but for precautions taken in view of its possibility, there would have been a fight.
Stanley now determined to cross his men by detachments in his own boat. He took over thirty above the village and told the natives that they had better assist him in carrying over the rest, for which he promised they should be well paid. They finally consented, and the whole expedition was soon landed safely on the left bank of the river.