“What a dismal place!” said Peterkin, in a low tone. “I feel as if we had got to the fag-end of the world, as if we were about plunging into ancient chaos.”
“It is, indeed,” I replied, “a most dreary region. I think that the gorillas will not be disturbed by many hunters with white faces.”
“There’s no saying,” interposed Jack. “I should not wonder, now, if you, Ralph, were to go home and write a book detailing our adventures in these parts, that at least half the sportsmen of England would be in Africa next year, and the race of gorillas would probably become extinct.”
“If the sportsmen don’t come out until I write a book about them, I fear the gorillas will remain undisturbed for all time to come.”
At that time, reader, I was not aware of the extreme difficulty that travellers experience in resisting the urgent entreaties of admiring and too partial friends!
Presently we came to a part of the forest where the underwood became so dense that we could scarcely make our way through it at all, and here we began for the first time to have some clearer conception of the immense power of the creature we were in pursuit of; for in order to clear its way it had torn down great branches of the trees, and in one or two places had seized young trees as thick as a man’s arm, and snapped them in two as one would snap a walking-cane.
Following the track with the utmost care for several miles, we at length came to a place where several huge rocks lay among the trees. Here, while we were walking along in silence, Makarooroo made a peculiar noise with his tongue, which we knew meant that he had discovered something worthy of special attention, so we came to an abrupt pause and looked at him.
“What is it, Mak?” inquired Jack.
The guide put his finger on his mouth to impose silence, and stood in a listening attitude with his eyes cast upon the ground, his nostrils distended, and every muscle of his dusky frame rigid, as if he were a statue of black marble. We also listened attentively, and presently heard a sound as of the breaking of twigs and branches.
“Dat am be gorilla,” said the guide, in a low whisper.