The world of the great forest

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

When he came in sight of the fence, he listened, but could only hear the heavy rain falling on the roofs of the houses. He heard no voices of the human beings, but his scent told him that many were there.

Then he said to himself: “They are sleeping, just as the men of the woods, the monkeys, and other animals of the forest do, during the night, and now is the time when I can pounce upon them.” The scent of human beings gave him courage, for he was famished and had become desperately ferocious from hunger. He walked slowly and silently in the middle of the street, looking here and there, his eyes shining like fire. At last he stopped before a house in which people were asleep, and thought for a while. Then, as quick as a swooping guanionien, he made a tremendous bound, landed in the middle of the palm-thatched roof, plunged through it and seized one of the inmates (a young girl), and in the twinkling of an eye he had sprung back through the hole he had made going into the house, with his prey in his mouth, made another spring, which landed him outside of the fence, and carried off his victim into the forest.

The njego had been so quick that the inmates of the house had hardly time to realize the great misfortune that had happened to them. They saw blood and the hole through the roof. Then they knew that the man-eater had been there and had carried off one of their people.

At their cries of anguish, the whole village awoke, and all the people knew that the man-eater had come back, and swore that they would never rest and be happy again until they had trapped him. They made a trap in the forest, in the shape of a funnel, planting long poles in the ground, close together, and making them fast. The structure was much narrower toward the end, so that it was impossible for the leopard to turn back. At the end was a sort of cage. The top of the trap was also closed with poles made very secure, so that when he went in he could not possibly escape.

When the trap was finished, they brought a goat and put him in the cage. During the night the goat, which was much frightened, cried incessantly. The man-eater heard him, and said, “To-night I will make a meal of that goat.”

When the night was sufficiently advanced, he descended the tree upon which he had slept, and, attracted by the noise of the goat, went toward the trap in which it was imprisoned.

Now though the njegos are very clever in getting prey, they are otherwise very stupid, and can easily be deceived.

So the njego went round the trap, and tried several times to reach the goat by putting his big paws inside; but the sticks were made so secure that he could not do it. He had never seen in the forest anything like the trap, and suspected that all might not be right about it. But at last his hunger got the better of him, and he entered the funnel, and walked towards the goat, which cried louder than before, it was so frightened. At first the njego had plenty of room, but, as he advanced farther and farther, he found it more difficult to move forward on account of the narrowness of the space. Then he touched a spring, and a trap-door fell behind him. At the noise the trap-door made in falling, the njego became frightened and tried to escape; but he found himself so tightly held that he could neither move forward nor backward. Then he became furious, and uttered terrific yells of rage in quick succession.

There was great joy among the people in the village when they heard the cries of the njego, for they knew he was trapped. In the morning they went to the trap and saw the njego making frantic efforts to get away; but the structure had been built so strongly that it was impossible for him to break through.

His yells of rage became terrific and filled the forest with their din. The people shouted to him: “Ah, ah, you ferocious and terrible creature, you njego man-eater! You have eaten enough kambis and ncheris and other animals which we would have killed and eaten ourselves, if it had not been for you, and you have also eaten our people. Now it is all over with you. You will eat no more. No one will be afraid of you hereafter.”