Lost in the Jungle; Narrated for Young People

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

"No one lives there," said Olenda, "except a race of people whom you may perhaps see, but, as soon as you approach their abodes, they vanish away, and no one can tell which way they have gone, for no one can see them when they disappear; their villages are made only with branches of trees."

I remained silent a little while.

Then I said, "Olenda, I want to go there; I want to go to the very top of the Nkoumou-Nabouali—to the very top," I added, pointing out to him the highest blue peak I could see from his village—"to the highest top, so that I may look at all the country round." I thought to myself what a glorious sight it would be, for, at a single glance, I should see hills, and plains, and rivers spread all around. My enthusiasm was very great when thinking of these things. I felt strong—so strong that I thought it would be nothing to go through that belt of immense forest and climb those high mountains.

Olenda gave a quiet laugh, which I still recollect, for it came from his hollow chest, and, if I had believed in witchcraft, I should have certainly thought Olenda was a sorcerer. His people were afraid of him, for no one could understand how he could have lived so long; all the wives he had married when a young man had died long ago; there was not a living man or woman in the country who knew him when he was a young man. The mothers of these people he knew when they were babies.

After he had given that laugh, which ended in a sarcastic smile, he looked me in the face and said, "You can not do it. No one has ever been there; there is a mighty spirit living in those woods which prevents people from passing. Besides, there is nothing to eat; there are no wild beasts, no antelope, no wild boar. At the foot of the mountain there is a tremendous waterfall, which drowns the roar of the gorilla."

"I must go," said I. So I talked to the Ashiras, and finally I managed, by making presents and promising more on my return, to get guides enough among the Ashira freemen to lead me through the impenetrable forests which lay between the prairie and the mountain top.

Then we prepared ourselves for the journey. I had two fine axes, which I filed and ground on soft stone in order to make them very sharp; also several manchettes, or cutlasses, to help us to cut our way through the jungle. I had several boxes of matches to light our fires, besides fire-steel and flints, in case our matches should get wet. I also took several wax candles, as it is much more easy to light the fires with them. Likewise I took one heavy blanket, for I knew not what kind of weather we should have on the mountains; as for my men, the fires would be their blankets.

The heavy portion of our luggage was several hundred bullets, about fifty pounds of shot with which to kill Guinea-fowls and other birds, and about ten pounds of powder.

For food we had smoke-dried plantains, which had been cooked first, and then dried on an orala by smoking them. We had also smoked cassada. This kind of food, prepared in this way, would keep much longer and be much lighter, so each man could carry a much greater quantity of it. We wanted plenty of food. It was the first time I had seen plantain prepared in that way.

We started in the midst of the cheers of the Ashira people, and, as we disappeared down the hill, I saw Olenda looking after us with his body half bent, and for all the world like some being of another planet.