“Yes,” said I to myself, “this must be the country where Hanno the Carthaginian came.” And for a while I thought of those men of old whose history we learn at school or college.
They have gone, but they have left their mark behind them, and will continue to be remembered for a long time. Then I put my feet inside of the foot-prints of the gorilla—how small they did look when compared with those of the huge creature!—and for a while I stood exactly on the same spot where he had stood. I do not know why, but I felt a kind of satisfaction in doing so; and like him I gazed at the sea, but, unlike him, I thought of the dear friends who lived on the other side, and I blessed them!
Then, looking carefully at my gun, I left the place and continued my ramble, when lo! in the far distance I spied a gorilla! The beast did not see me: it was a female, and must have been half a mile from the sea. I hid myself behind a tree in order to watch all her movements unseen. She was seated on the ground before a cluster of pine-apples, quietly eating one: she soon threw it away and plucked some of the leaves. How black the face was! She grinned now and then, probably from the joy the food gave her, when suddenly, to my utter astonishment, a little gorilla, about two feet and a half in height, came running to its mother, who gave a kind of chuckle that resembled very much the click of the Bushmen of Southern Africa.
I began to be terribly excited. I must kill the mother and try to capture the young one. How sorry I was to be alone. I wished my men had been with me.
Unfortunately there were many intervening trees, and she was about three hundred yards off. How could the bullet from my rifle reach her? I had just left my place of concealment when she perceived me. She uttered a piercing cry and disappeared, with her young one following her.
A YOUNG GORILLA.
When I returned to the camp every body had gone except Kombé, who had been left in charge. On my way back I took the sea-shore, and saw on the beach for the first time the foot-prints made by the hippopotami, and I wondered what they came to do so near the sea. So I followed one and was surprised to see their heavy footsteps along the beach: they must certainly have come there to bathe, and this I had never seen before.
FEMALE GORILLA AND HER YOUNG.
One fine morning, just at sunrise, I spied a sail coming from the south. How glad I was as I saw that sail coming nearer and nearer!