Lost in the Jungle; Narrated for Young People

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Several weeks have passed away since the story of Akenda Mbani was told us, and we have since been wandering through the forest in the midst of the intricate hunting-paths which Querlaouen knew so well. At night we would all meet and recount the adventures of the day, and eat the game which some of us had been fortunate enough to kill. In case we had killed no game, then we had our elephant meat to fall back upon.

How silent the forest was! Not a human being besides ourselves was to be seen. A leaf falling, a bird singing, a wild guinea-fowl calling for its mate, the footsteps of a gazelle, the chatter of a monkey, the hum of a bee, the rippling of the water of some beautiful little stream as it meandered through the forest, were the only noises that ever disturbed the stillness of this grand solitude.

Now and then we could hear the wind whispering strangely as it passed gently amid the branches of the tall trees hanging over our heads.

We must have looked strange indeed as we wandered through that great forest, where God alone could see us. How strange every thing seemed to me! I was in another world, and novel objects every where met my eyes.

One morning I hear a strange cry high up in the air. I look, and what do I see?—what do I see yonder up in the sky? An eagle. But what kind of an eagle? for it appears to me so much larger than any eagle I have ever met with before. And as I asked this, my men exclaimed, "It is a guanionien; the leopard of the air; the bird that feeds on gazelles, goats, and monkeys; the bird that is the most difficult of any to find and to kill." "Yes," said Querlaouen; "in my younger days I remember that my wife and myself were on our plantation, with some of our slaves, and one day we heard the cries of a baby, and saw a child carried up into the sky by one of these guanioniens. The baby had been laid on the ground, and the guanionien, whose eyes never miss any thing, and which had not been noticed soaring above our heads, pounced on its prey, and then laughed at us as he rose and flew to a distant part of the forest." Then Querlaouen showed me a fetich partly made of two huge claws of this bird. What tremendous things those talons were! how deep they could go into the flesh!

Then came wonderful stories of the very great strength of the bird.

The people were afraid of them, and were compelled to be very careful of their babies. These grand eagles do not feed on fowls; they are too small game for them. Monkeys are what they like best; they can watch them as they float over the top of the trees of the forest; but sometimes the monkeys get the better of them.

"People had better not try to get hold of the guanionien's young if they want to keep their sight," said Gambo; "for, as sure as we live, the old bird will pounce upon the man that touches its young."

For a long time I had heard the people talking of the guanionien, but had never yet had a glimpse of one.

Now, looking up again, I saw several of them. How high they were! At times they would appear to be quite still in the air; at other times they would soar. They were so high that I do not see how they could possibly see the trees; every thing must have been in a haze to them; monkeys, of course, could not be seen. They were, no doubt, amusing themselves, and I wonder if they tried to see how near they could go to the sun. Some at times flew so high that I lost sight of them.