CHAPTER ELEVEN.
HOW WE MET WITH OUR FIRST GORILLA, AND HOW WE SERVED HIM.
"It never rains but it pours," is a true proverb. I have often noticed,in the course of my observations on sublunary affairs, that eventsseldom come singly. I have often gone out fishing for trout in therivers of my native land, day after day, and caught nothing, while atother times I have, day after day, returned home with my basket full.
As it was in England, so I found it in Africa. For many days after ourarrival in the gorilla country, we wandered about without seeing asingle creature of any kind. Lions, we ascertained, were never found inthose regions, and we were told that this was in consequence of theirhaving been beaten off the field by gorillas. But at last, after we hadall, severally and collectively, given way to despair, we came upon thetracks of a gorilla, and from that hour we were kept constantly on the_qui vive_, and in the course of the few weeks we spent in that part ofthe country, we "bagged," as Peterkin expressed it, "no end ofgorillas"--great and small, young and old.
I will never forget the powerful sensations of excitement and anxietythat filled our breasts when we came on the first gorilla footprint. Wefelt as no doubt Robinson Crusoe did when he discovered the footprint ofa savage in the sand. Here at last was the indubitable evidence of theexistence and presence of the terrible animal we had come so far to see.Here was the footstep of that creature about which we had heard so manywonderful stories, whose existence the civilised world had, up to withina very short time back, doubted exceedingly, and in regard to which,even now, we knew comparatively very little.
Makarooroo assured us that he had hunted this animal some years ago, andhad seen one or two at a distance, though he had never killed one, andstated most emphatically that the footprint before us, which happened tobe in a soft sandy spot, was undoubtedly caused by the foot of agorilla.
Being satisfied on this head, we four sat down in a circle round thefootprint to examine it, while our men stood round about us, looking onwith deep interest expressed in their dark faces.
"At last!" said I, carefully brushing away some twigs that partlycovered the impression.
"Ay, at last!" echoed Jack, while his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
"Ay," observed Peterkin, "and a pretty big _last_ he must require, too.I shouldn't like to be his shoemaker. What a thumb, or a toe. Onedoesn't know very well which to call it."
"I wonder if it's old?" said I.
"As old as the hills," replied Peterkin; "at least 50 I would judge fromits size."
"You mistake me. I mean that I wonder whether the footprint is old, orif it has been made recently."
"Him's quite noo," interposed our guide.
"How d'ye know, Mak?"
"'Cause me see."
"Ay; but what do you see that enables you to form such an opinion?"
"O Ralph, how can you expect a nigger to understand such a sentence asthat?" said Jack, as he turned to Mak and added, "What do you see?"
"Me see one leetle stick brok in middel. If you look to him you see himwhite and clean. If hims was old, hims would be mark wid rain anddirt."
"There!" cried Peterkin, giving me a poke in the side, "see what it isto be a minute student of the small things in nature. Make a note ofit, Ralph."
I did make a note of it mentally on the spot, and then proposed that weshould go in search of the gorilla without further delay.
We were in the midst of a dark gloomy wood in the neighbourhood of arange of mountains whose blue serrated peaks rose up into the clouds.Their sides were partly clothed with wood. We were travelling--nothunting--at the time we fell in with the track above referred to, so weimmediately ordered the men to encamp where they were, while we shouldgo after the gorilla, accompanied only by Mak, whose nerves we coulddepend on.
Shouldering our trusty rifles, and buckling tight the belts of our heavyhunting-knives, we sallied forth after the manner of American Indians,in single file, keeping, as may well be supposed, a sharp lookout as wewent along. The fact was that long delay, frequent disappointment, andnow the near prospect of success, conspired together to fill us with aspecies of nervous excitement that caused us to start at every sound.
The woods here were pretty thick, but they varied in their character sofrequently that we were at one time pushing slowly among dense, almostimpenetrable underwood, at another walking briskly over small plainswhich were covered in many places with large boulders. It wasaltogether a gloomy, savage-looking country, and seemed to me wellsuited to be the home of so dreadful an animal. There were few animalsto be seen here. Even birds were scarce, and a few chattering monkeyswere almost the only creatures that broke the monotonous silence andsolitude around us.
"What a dismal place!" said Peterkin, in a low tone. "I feel as if wehad got to the fag-end of the world, as if we were about plunging intoancient chaos."
"It is, indeed," I replied, "a most dreary region. I think that thegorillas will not be disturbed by many hunters with white faces."
"There's no saying," interposed Jack. "I should not wonder, now, ifyou, Ralph, were to go home and write a book detailing our adventures inthese parts, that at least half the sportsmen of England would be inAfrica next year, and the race of gorillas would probably becomeextinct."
"If the sportsmen don't come out until I write a book about them, I fearthe gorillas will remain undisturbed for all time to come."
At that time, reader, I was not aware of the extreme difficulty thattravellers experience in resisting the urgent entreaties of admiring andtoo partial friends!
Presently we came to a part of the forest where the underwood became sodense that we could scarcely make our way through it at all, and here webegan for the first time to have some clearer conception of the immensepower of the creature we were in pursuit of; for in order to clear itsway it had torn down great branches of the trees, and in one or twoplaces had seized young trees as thick as a man's arm, and snapped themin two as one would snap a walking-cane.
Following the track with the utmost care for several miles, we at lengthcame to a place where several huge rocks lay among the trees. Here,while we were walking along in silence, Makarooroo made a peculiar noisewith his tongue, which we knew meant that he had discovered somethingworthy of special attention, so we came to an abrupt pause and looked athim.
"What is it, Mak?" inquired Jack.
The guide put his finger on his mouth to impose silence, and stood in alistening attitude with his eyes cast upon the ground, his nostrilsdistended, and every muscle of his dusky frame rigid, as if he were astatue of black marble. We also listened attentively, and presentlyheard a sound as of the breaking of twigs and branches.
"Dat am be gorilla," said the guide, in a low whisper.
We exchanged looks of eager satisfaction.
"How shall we proceed, Mak?" inquired Jack.
"We mus' go bery slow, dis way," said the guide, imitating the processof walking with extreme caution. "No break leetle stick. If you breakleetle stick hims go right away."
Promising Mak that we would attend to his injunctions most carefully, wedesired him to lead the way, and in a few minutes after came so near towhere the sound of breaking sticks was going on that we all halted,fearing that we should scare the animal away before we could get a sightof it amongst the dense underwood.
"What can he be doing?" said I to the guide, as we stood looking at eachother for a few seconds uncertain how to act.
"Him's breakin' down branches for git at him's feed, s'pose."
"Do you see that?" whispered Peterkin, as he pointed to an open spaceamong the bushes. "Isn't that a bit o' the hairy brute?"
"It looks like it," replied Jack eagerly.
"Cluck!" ejaculated Makarooroo, making a peculiar noise with his tongue."Dat him. Blaze away!"
"But it may not be a mortal part," objected Peterkin. "He might escapeif only wounded."
"Nebber fear. Hims come at us if hims be wound. Only we mus' be readyfo
r him."
"All ready," said Jack, cocking both barrels of his rifle.--"Now,Peterkin, a good aim. If he comes here he shall get a quietus."
All this was said in the lowest possible whispers. Peterkin took asteady aim at the part of the creature that was visible, and fired.
I have gone through many wild adventures since then. I have heard theroar of the lion and the tiger in all circumstances, and the laugh ofthe hyena, besides many other hideous sounds, but I never in all my lifelistened to anything that in any degree approached in thunderingferocity the appalling roar that burst upon our ears immediately afterthat shot was fired. I can compare it to nothing, for nothing I everheard was like it. If the reader can conceive a human fiend endued witha voice far louder than that of the lion, yet retaining a little of theintonation both of the man's voice and of what we should suppose afiend's voice to be, he may form some slight idea of what that roar was.It is impossible to describe it. Perhaps Mak's expression in regard toit is the most emphatic and truthful: it was absolutely "_horriboble_!"Every one has heard a sturdy, well-grown little boy, when beingthrashed, howling at the very top of his bent. If one can conceive of afull-grown male giant twenty feet high pouring forth his whole soul andvoice with similarly unrestrained fervour, he may approximate to anotion of it.
And it was not uttered once or twice, but again and again, until thewhole woods trembled with it, and we felt as if our ears could notendure more of it without the tympanums being burst.
For several moments we stood motionless with our guns ready, expectingan immediate attack, and gazing with awe, not unmingled--at least on mypart--with fear, at the turmoil of leaves and twigs and broken branchesthat was going on round the spot where the monster had been wounded.
"Come," cried Jack at length, losing patience and springing forward; "ifhe won't attack us we must attack him."
We followed close on his heels, and next moment emerged upon a small andcomparatively open space, in the midst of which we found the gorillaseated on the ground, tearing up the earth with its hands, grinninghorribly and beating its chest, which sent forth a loud hollow sound asif it were a large drum. We saw at once that both its thighs had beenbroken by Peterkin's shot.
Of all the hideous creatures I had ever seen or heard of, none came upin the least degree to this. Apart altogether from its gigantic size,this monster was calculated to strike terror into the hearts ofbeholders simply by the expression of its visage, which was quitesatanic. I could scarcely persuade myself that I was awake. It seemedas if I were gazing on one of those hideous creatures one beholds whenoppressed with nightmare.
But we had little time to indulge in contemplation, for the instant thebrute beheld us it renewed its terrible roar, and attempted to springup; but both its legs at once gave way, and it fell with a passionategrowl, biting the earth, and twisting and tearing bunches of twigs andleaves in its fury. Suddenly it rushed upon us rapidly by means of itsfore legs or arms.
"Look out, Jack!" we cried in alarm.
Jack stood like a rock and deliberately levelled his rifle. Even atthis moment of intense excitement I could not help marvelling at thediminutive appearance of my friend when contrasted with the gorilla. Inheight, indeed, he was of course superior, and would have been so hadthe gorilla been able to stand erect, but his breadth of shoulder andchest, and his length and size of arm, were strikingly inferior. Justas the monster approached to within three yards of him, Jack sent a ballinto its chest, and the king of the African woods fell dead at our feet!
It is impossible to convey in words an idea of the gush of mingledfeelings that filled our breasts as we stood beside and gazed at thehuge carcass of our victim. Pity at first predominated in my heart,then I felt like an accomplice to a murder, and then an exultingsensation of joy at having obtained a specimen of one of the rarestanimals in the world overwhelmed every other feeling.
The size of this animal--and we measured him very carefully--was asfollows:--
Height, 5 feet 6 inches; girth of the chest, 4 feet 2 inches; spread ofits arms, 7 feet 2 inches. Perhaps the most extraordinary measurementwas that of the great thumb of its hind foot, which was 5 and a halfinches in circumference. When I looked at this and at the great bunchesof hard muscles which composed its brawny chest and arms, I could almostbelieve in the stories told by the natives of the tremendous feats ofstrength performed by the gorilla. The body of this brute was coveredwith grey hair, but the chest was bare and covered with tough skin, andits face was intensely black. I shuddered as I looked upon it, forthere was something terribly human-like about it, despite thebrutishness of its aspect.
"Now, I'll tell you what we shall do," said Jack, after we had completedour examination of the gorilla. "We will encamp where we are for thenight, and send Makarooroo back to bring our fellows up with the packs,so that you, Ralph, will be able to begin the work of skinning andcleaning the bones at once. What say you?"
"Agreed, with all my heart," I replied.
"Well, then," observed Peterkin, "here goes for a fire, to begin with,and then for victuals to continue with. By the way, what say you to agorilla steak? I'm told the niggers eat him.--Don't they, Mak?"
"Yis, massa, dey does. More dan dat, de niggers in dis part ob countryeat mans."
"Eat mans!" echoed Peterkin in horror.
"Yis, eat mans, and womins, an' childerdens."
"Oh, the brutes! But I don't believe you, Mak. What are the villainscalled?"
"Well, it not be easy for say what dem be called. Miss'naries calls demcanibobbles."
"Ho!" shouted Peterkin, "canibobbles? eh! well done. Mak, I must getyou to write a new dictionary; I think it would pay!"
"It won't pay to go on talking like this, though," observed Jack."Come, hand me the axe. I'll fell this tree while you strike a light,Peterkin.--Be off with you, Mak.--As for Ralph, we must leave him to hisnote-book; I see there is no chance of getting him away from his belovedgorilla till he has torn its skin from its flesh, and its flesh from itsbones."
Jack was right. I had now several long hours' work before me, which Iknew could not be delayed, and to which I applied myself forthwith mosteagerly, while my comrades lit the fire and prepared the camp, andMakarooroo set off on his return journey to bring up the remainder ofour party.
That night, while I sat by the light of the camp-fire toiling at mytask, long after the others had retired to rest, I observed the featuresof Jack and Peterkin working convulsively, and their hands clutchingnervously as they slept, and I smiled to think of the battles withgorillas which I felt assured they must be fighting, and the enormous"bags" they would be certain to tell of on returning from the realms ofdreamland to the regions of reality.