At last we came to an immense mountain torrent, which rushed down the hillside with fearful force, and was white with foam. Its course was full of huge granite boulders, which lay about as though the Titans had been playing at skittles in that country. Against these the angry waters dashed as if they would carry all before them, and, breaking, threw the milky spray up to the very tree-tops. As I looked up the torrent seemed to pour its foaming waters directly down upon us.
This was the head of the Ntambounay river which I had ascended in a canoe, and on the banks of which I came near being murdered in the Shekiani village. What a change had taken place in it! Here a canoe would be dashed into a hundred pieces against the rocks.
I was so thirsty and tired that I went to the river's bank, and drank a few handfuls of the pure, clean cold water.
After resting a little while, we continued our course till we reached the top of a very high mountain, whence I could see all the country round. How wild and desolate it looked! Nothing but forest and mountains stretching away as far as the eye could reach.
I was sitting under a very large tree, when, suddenly looking up, I saw an immense serpent coiled upon the branch of a tree just above me; and I really could not tell whether he was not about to spring upon me and entangle me in his huge folds. You may well believe that I very quickly "stood from under." I rushed out, and taking good aim with my gun, I shot my black friend in the head. He let go his hold, tumbled down with great force, and after writhing convulsively for a time, he lay before me dead. He measured thirteen feet in length, and his ugly fangs proved that he was venomous.
My men cut off the head of the snake, and divided the body into as many pieces as there were people. Then they lighted a fire, and roasted and ate it on the spot. They offered me a piece; but, though very hungry, I declined. When the snake was eaten I was the only individual of the company that had an empty stomach; I could not help reflecting on the disadvantage it is sometimes to have been born and bred in a civilized country, where snakes are not accounted good eating.
We now began to look about the ruins of the village near which we sat. A degenerate kind of sugar-cane was growing on the very spot where the houses had formerly stood. I made haste to pluck some of this, and chew it for the little sweetness it had. While thus engaged my men perceived what instantly threw us all into the greatest excitement. Here and there the cane was beaten down or torn up by the roots; and, lying about, were fragments which had evidently been chewed. There were also footprints to be seen, which looked almost like those of human beings. What could this mean? My men looked at each other in silence, and muttered, "Nguyla!" (Gorillas!).
It was the first time I had seen the footprints of these wild men of the woods, and I cannot tell you how I felt. Here was I now, it seemed, on the point of meeting, face to face, that monster, of whose ferocity, strength, and cunning the natives had told me so much, and which no white man before had hunted. My heart beat till I feared its loud pulsations would alarm the gorilla. I wondered how they looked. I thought of what Hanno the Carthaginian navigator said about the wild hairy men he had met on the West Coast of Africa more than two thousand years ago.
By the tracks it was easy to know that there must have been several gorillas in company. We prepared at once to follow them.
The women were terrified. They thought their end had come—that the gorilla would be soon upon them. So, before starting in search of the monster, we left two or three men to take care of them and reassure them. Then the rest of us looked once more carefully at our guns; for the gorilla gives you no time to reload, and woe to him whom he attacks! We were fortunately armed to the teeth.