Lost in the Jungle; Narrated for Young People

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

I was sorry to hurt his poor neck, but the first thing the little rascal attempted as soon as I raised the stick from the ground was to start at us. But he could not even turn his head round. He had to walk off a prisoner, and his shouts and shrieks were of no avail. His father and mother had been killed, and he had no one to defend him from his enemies.

How proud we felt of our prize! We returned by the way we had come, being guided by the broken boughs of young trees and the leaves we had thrown on the ground. As soon as we came to the female gorilla, and the little fellow saw his mother, he tried to rush toward her. I dropped the forked stick and let him go. He at once jumped on his mother, and began sucking her breasts, and then looked in her face, and appeared to feel quite sorrowful. When he saw she was dead, he gave a howl at us, as if to say, "You fellows have killed my mother!"

It was utterly impossible for us to carry to our camp all our spoil, so we concluded to hang her to a branch of a tree, and come for her the next morning, which we did.

Then we continued our march, and toward sunset came to the large male we had killed in the morning. We were so tired that we did not wish to do any thing with the big gorilla that night. I felt I was too tired to take his skin off. The little fellow did not seem to care for his father; he looked at him well, and gave only a single plaintive cry. I could not help thinking of the poor old fellow. How many times he had slept at the foot of some big tree, and kept watch over his wife and baby! Now he was dead, nothing but his huge body and his tremendous face showed the giant strength he once possessed; now a little insect was stronger than he was.

What had he died for? He had died bravely defending his wife and baby from an enemy whom he knew had come to do them harm. He was right. May I and every man of us always have the same motive that big gorilla had!

I could not help feeling sorry. Here lay dead before me a wonderful beast, one of the most strange creatures of the forest God has created. His mate lay dead in another part of the forest, and their offspring was my prisoner.

How strange his huge shadow looked as he hung by the neck to the limb of a tree near our camp, and how small our bodies looked by the side of his!

That night I could not sleep. That big gorilla was always before my eyes. He seemed to grin at me; his long, powerful arm, his huge hands, appeared as if they were moving and trying to seize me. I could see his big black nails ready to go into my flesh; his mouth seemed ready to open and give one of those terrific roars which shake the whole forest. And then I would see his enormous canines come out from his sharp-cut lips, and how red his mouth was inside. There were his deep sunken eyes, wide open, looking at me, and, though dead, he had a scowl of defiance and intense ferocity on his face. It so happened that his face was turned toward the bed of leaves on which I lay, and he was hung not far from me.

The young gorilla during the whole night moaned for his mother. He would look at the fires before him, then at us, and then give a howl, as if was saying, "What have I before me?" I decidedly frightened him more than Malaouen and Querlaouen could, for, in despite of the noise the young gorilla made, and of the shadow of the big gorilla, they had fallen sound asleep. But now and then they would awake, look at the fires, put on more wood to make a blaze, would perhaps smoke a pipe, and then go to sleep again.

Toward four o'clock in the morning Querlaouen arose, took from his bag a little idol, and put it on the ground, muttering words I could not hear, all the time thinking I was sound asleep. Then he took a piece of chalk of the Alumbi, and rubbed it on his forehead between his two eyes; then he rubbed it in the hollow of his chest, and along both his arms; then he chewed a piece of a certain soft cane, which he spat on the idol; and then he talked to it. Now and then he muttered my name. At last I understood that the ignorant but good fellow was begging his idol to take care of me.