In Brightest Africa

Both Savage and Du Chaillu and all succeeding authorities, including the standard works on natural history, speak of the gorillas as among the most powerful and ferocious animals on earth. And this reputation is so firmly established in the popular mind that our plan of taking ladies with no previous hunting experience of any kind into a gorilla country in Central Africa was looked upon as madness. But to the general theory of the ferocity of wild animals I have never been a convert. And the more I have seen of wild animals in Africa the less I have believed in their ferocity. Consequently, I explained my creed concerning the gorillas in this fashion:

I believe that the gorilla is normally a perfectly amiable and decent creature. I believe that if he attacks man it is because he is being attacked or thinks that he is being attacked. I believe that he will fight in self-defense and probably in defense of his family; that he will keep away from a fight until he is frightened or driven into it. I believe that, although the old male advances when a hunter is approaching a family of gorillas, he will not close in, if the man involved has the courage to stand firm. In other words, his advance will turn out to be what is usually called a bluff.

I believe, however, that the white man who will allow a gorilla to get within ten feet of him without shooting is a plain darn fool, for certainly the average man would have little show in the clutch of a three or four hundred pound gorilla.

My faith in the general amiability and decency of the gorilla is not based on experience or actual knowledge of any sort, but on deductions from the observation of wild animals in general and more particularly of monkeys. There are few animals that deliberately go into fight with an unknown antagonist or with a known antagonist, for that matter, without what seems to them a good reason. In other words, they are not looking for trouble.

The lion will fight when the maintenance of his dignity demands it. Most animals will fight only when driven to it through fear, either for themselves or their young.

The first living gorilla that I ever observed was in the Zoölogical Park in London many years ago. It was very young and its chief aim in life seemed a desire to be loved. This has seemed to be the chief characteristic of the few live gorillas that I have seen in captivity. They appear to have an extremely affectionate disposition and to be passionately fond of the person most closely associated with them; and I think there is no doubt that John Daniel, who died in the Ringling Brothers Circus in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1921, died of a broken heart because he was separated from his mistress. I did not have the pleasure of seeing John Daniel alive; but in death he certainly had the appearance of anything but a savage beast. The above notes are here set down for the purpose of recording the frame of mind with which I am going into the Kivu country to study, photograph, and collect gorillas.

Going as I am, equipped with motion-picture cameras with which one can get motion pictures under most adverse conditions, I am led to hope for something in the way of photographs of live wild gorillas. I hope that I shall have the courage to allow an apparently charging gorilla to come within reasonable distance before shooting. I hesitate to say just what I consider a reasonable distance at the present moment. I shall feel very gratified if I can get a photograph at twenty feet. I should be proud of my nerve if I were able to show a photograph of him at ten feet, but I do not expect to do this unless I am at the moment a victim of suicidal mania.

The rest of the party had the courage of my convictions and with these tenets we set out, men, women, and child to hunt the "ferocious" gorilla in the heart of Africa.

While getting provisions and equipment in London I had the good fortune to be able to check up with accuracy the location of the gorilla country. I had lunch with Sir Northrop Macmillan from Nairobi, Kenia Colony, Sir Charles Ross, and Mr. Grogan, who twenty-four years before had walked alone from the Cape to Cairo—the first man who ever made that trip. Sir Charles Ross had directions from Mr. T. Alexander Barnes for getting to the Kivu region where Barnes had the year before killed a gorilla. Mr. Grogan supplemented these directions, for in this very region on his famous walk he had found a gorilla skull. He knew the region well, for he had been stationed in it during the war. With this very valuable corroboration we set sail for Cape Town.

To the Kivu gorilla country from Cape Town is a varied and interesting journey. It took us about six weeks of constant travelling. The journey from Cape Town to Bukama, where we left the railroad, occupied seventeen days including stops which are quite a feature of South African travel. At one place we waited six days for a train. It is worth notice that on this entire railroad journey we did not see a single head of game—so rapidly has African wild life disappeared in the south. From Bukama we travelled on a steel barge towed by a river boat for a five-day run down the Lualaba which is really the upper waters of the Congo. The boat ran along during the day and tied up at night so that we missed nothing of the beauty and interest of that part of the river's course. The bird life was in great profusion. Great trees hung over the river and were reflected from its placid surface with almost perfect outline and detail. There were a few crocodiles in sight. We saw one hippopotamus and once on this trip we saw elephants some distance from the bank.

At the end of this lazy steamer trip we came to Kabalo from which occasionally a train sets out upon the journey to Albertville on Lake Tanganyika. A boat on the lake took us from Albertville to Usumbura from which a seven days' safari brought us to the lower end of Lake Kivu. To get from the bottom of Lake Kivu to the upper end, we had to make arrangements for a special trip of the little government boat. This we did with the Belgian Administrator at Usumbura. Here, as elsewhere, my experience with the administrative officers in these outposts of the Belgian Congo was one of courtesy and effectiveness. Halfway up the lake we stopped at the White Friars' Mission on the west bank and heard the story of a gorilla recently killed in the vicinity. This gorilla had come down into a banana grove not far from the Mission. The chief of the village which owned the grove told his followers to go out and chase the beast away, but not to go armed, for the beast, in the superstition of the neighbourhood, had some sacred attributes. The chief's subjects accordingly went forth with sticks to drive out the gorilla, but he refused to be driven and resented the disturbance enough to catch one of his tormentors and kill him. After this the chief thought the gorilla less sacred and ordered his subjects to take their spears with them and kill the animal.

I was not entirely clear about the veracity of this tale nor whether it confirmed my theory about the gorilla or the more usual "ferocious" theory. If the natives were willing to go out to chase the gorilla away armed only with sticks, its reputation for ferocity could not be great. On the other hand, the confidence in the animal's harmlessness seemed to have been misplaced. But one fact did stand out. We were getting into the real gorilla country. That quickened the blood. The next day we went to the head of the lake.

A Belgian administrator and his wife who were on the boat with us left us at Kissenyi at the northern end of Lake Kivu. They had a three weeks' trek before them, over the mountains to their own home and the district over which the administrator had supervision. They had told us many stories of gorillas in their section of the country, of the gorillas becoming so aggressive that they had entered several villages and driven out the natives, and they had urged us to go with them, but we stuck to our original plan.

Here at Kissenyi was another Belgian station and here we met Mrs. T. Alexander Barnes, the wife of a man whose directions we had received from Sir Charles Ross. Barnes himself was in the interior hunting gorillas for the British Museum. We sent a note to him because we did not want to interfere with his hunting, and in the meanwhile set to work to get our porters and guides ready. We decided it would be best for the women to stay at Kissenyi for the time being and for me to push on for the gorilla country. There were two reasons for this decision. Mrs. Bradley had a little touch of fever and it was not advisable for her to leave, and secondly, while I did not believe much in the danger to us from the gorillas, I was greatly afraid that with a large hunting party there might be equally little danger to them. So it was determined that I should try to insure the Museum some specimens and if possible get the first moving pictures of live wild gorillas ever taken.

It was a three days' march from Kissenyi to the White Friars' Mission at Lulenga in the interior. This Mission I found was the base from which Barnes operated and also, I learned, it was the base the Prince of Sweden had used. It lay near the foot of Mt. Mikeno in a country of volcanic origin. The White Friars themselves carry on here the teaching of the Catholic religion to which they add the practice of medicine and teaching of manual training. Some of the friars have been there as long as seventeen years. At the Mission I was supplied with a guide. I went a little way into the woods and was shown signs that gorillas had fed there within a day or two. I was nervous and anxious. The long trip was done. I was actually in the gorilla country. I was an alternating current of eagerness to go and fear that I should find nothing.

The latter mood prevailed the next morning, for although I was ready to start for the bamboos by daylight my guides, who were supposed to be in camp, were nowhere to be found. I had to send for them, but we did not get started before eight.

We trailed up through the forest into the bamboos, seeing signs of elephant and buffalo—some of the signs being made the night before—and I had to pinch myself occasionally to bring about the realization that I was not hunting elephants on a miniature Kenia. There was the same vegetation, except that the trees were smaller. There were elephant trails, but only a few and with small tracks. There were no great forest trees like those of Kenia, no bamboos seventy-five feet high with five-inch stems. There was just little stuff, but still it was all reminiscent of Kenia. One thing, the slopes were just as steep and just as slippery, and the mud in the level places just as deep and sticky as Kenia's.

Through this forest there are native trails or game trails almost everywhere. We had followed these trails for about two hours up the side of Mikeno when we came to a spot where there was a little mud hole in the path. I'll never forget it. In that mud hole were the marks of four great knuckles where the gorilla had placed his hand on the ground. There is no other track like this on earth—there is no other hand in the world so large. Nearest to it is the hand of the chimpanzee, and he does not place his hand on the ground in the same way. As I looked at that track I lost the faith on which I had brought my party to Africa. Instinctively I took my gun from the gun boy. I knew then the feeling Du Chaillu described in his quaint phrase, "My feelings were really excited to a painful degree."

I had more thrill from the sight of this first track than from anything that happened later. I forgot all about Kenia as the guide took up the trail. Half an hour later we came upon other tracks, tracks made by the feet of the beast, enormous human-looking tracks showing the marks of a heel which no other living thing in the world but the gorilla and man has. I gave the boy back the Springfield and took the big .475 elephant gun. And although the next bit of going was hard and wearing, I carried the gun myself and trusted it to no gun boy.

We followed the trail for two hours, and I think a full half hour was spent on all fours in true storybook fashion.

It led us through a clearing where bamboo cutters had been at work, and we failed to pick it up again even though I offered the guides a king's ransom (in their eyes) if they would show me the old boy before dark. They were lackadaisical about the whole affair. I had to give it up, and as I started for camp I realized that I was very tired. Then we spent an hour going straight up the steepest possible slope and down again following sounds that turned out to be made by a troop of monkeys. When we reached camp at three o'clock in the inevitable downpour of this season, I was "all in." The rain stopped, and I called a conference of the guides with the result that I came to the conclusion that they were entirely useless. They did not want to go on at all. I broke camp immediately and started a two-and-a-half hour march to the Mission not knowing just what my next move would be—probably to hunt up some "bushmen" as guides. I reached the Mission before sundown, in the usual rain, and went to bed.

The next morning I came around to the southwest of Mikeno, about three hours from the Mission, to the village of the Sultan of Burunga who came out to meet me. I explained my mission, and he immediately brought forward from the group of natives who accompanied him two splendid fellows who he said would guide me. There was a gleam of real hope in the situation. We would camp at Burunga for the night and start up the mountain in the morning. As I turned to go toward the indicated camping place, a husky, handsome native came up in breathless haste, and presented a note of recommendation as gun-bearer signed by T. A. Barnes. He was promptly engaged and everything seemed bright again.

I was ready to start soon after daylight. I had felt so keen for the coming of the light and had hoped for so much from the new gun-bearer and guides. They had a cozy nest some distance from camp; they had seemed so enthusiastic the day before and had promised an early start. I waited and waited till my patience was exhausted. I feared another farce so finally sent for them. They came smiling, confident, and keen to be off. They insisted that no porters could go—it would not be possible to carry cameras or any of the scientific kit where they were going. It was up to them. I had put myself in their hands. I wanted to at least see a gorilla. I still doubted that there could be such a thing in this part of the world—even though I had seen its tracks.

We started down into that deep chasm to the west which the camp overhung, then up to the other side—up and up—crawling and scrambling, the guides cutting a way through the dense growth of greenery, beating down and cursing the nettles which were everywhere. On and on up to the crest of the ridge and then up along the "hogback" until we were five hundred feet above camp—then at a level along the western slope. I earnestly hoped they would go no higher; it was grilling work. We were overlooking another chasm with a still higher ridge on the far side. We stopped occasionally to scan the opposite side. It was deathly still—there was rarely the slightest breeze. Someone heard a sound across the nullah—very slight—but the guides were suspicious. We went on, stopping now and then to look and listen. The youngest guide, a boy of fourteen, perhaps, pointed to a spot where he had seen a movement of the vegetation. We watched closely for five minutes, then a great black head slowly appeared above the green—rather indistinct, but there could be no doubt as to what it was.

It was my first glimpse of a wild gorilla. It has left an everlasting impression, for it was so totally different from anything I had expected. In a solid wall of vivid green a great scraggly black head rose slowly into view where it remained motionless for perhaps a half minute, giving me time to view it with field glasses so that I was able to make out the features. I was actually seeing a live wild gorilla. At the end of a long journey I was face to face with the creature I sought. I took the gun with slight intention of chancing a shot at that distance unless there should be opportunity for very careful and deliberate aim. The shaggy head was withdrawn—then a glimpse of the great silvery back and we saw no more. We went into the beastly chasm and up again to where he had been.

THE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI

Shot by Mr. Bradley

THE HEAD OF MR. AKELEY'S FIRST GORILLA

The guides were too eager; I had constantly to hold them back while I stopped to breathe. We took up his trail. He led us on to the crest of that ridge and then along the "hogback" till we were about one thousand feet above camp. Then as the trail swung along the other slope at the level we heard one short roar ahead of us. The thrill of it! I had actually heard the roar of a bull gorilla! It seemed perhaps two hundred yards ahead. I thought it indicated alarm and that he would lead us a merry chase. We continued along the trail slowly, for it led along a slope so steep that without the rank vegetation we could not have stuck on.

We had gone not more than one hundred and fifty yards from the time we heard the roar, with the gun-bearer just ahead and the second gun and guides behind. The gun-bearer stopped, looking up into the dense tangle above us. It was still as death—no sound of movement could I hear. The gun was in his left hand; with his right he clung to the bank just beside him. Behind there was a four-inch tree between me and a straight drop of twenty feet, then a slide of fifty feet to the edge of a chasm more than 200 feet deep. I leaned my back against this tree that I might straighten up for a better look. The gun-bearer turned slowly and passed me the .475. As I took it I heard that roar again—thirty feet away, almost directly above. One plunge and down we would all go three hundred feet to the bottom. Without the support of the sapling at my back it would not be humanly possible to fire the big gun upward from that trail. There was a deal of comfort in the feel of that old gun even though theoretically I did not fear gorillas; it had stood by me in more than one close place. After the roar there was silence for an instant—not a branch stirred—then a crashing rush along at a level, above and past me—another roar—back again to where he had been. I had seen nothing but a swaying of the mass of vegetation right down to our feet. He stopped where he had been at first. Silence. Through the green against the sky I seemed to make out a denser mass—the outline of his head. I aimed just below and his fourth roar was broken by the roar of the .475. A terrific crashing plunge of three or four hundred pounds of beast, he struck the trail eight feet from me. The gun was on him. There was a soft nose in the left barrel ready for him, but it was unnecessary. The slight ledge of trail did not stop him in the least. He crashed on down over and over, almost straight downward toward the edge of the chasm.

My heart sank for I realized that if he went to the bottom I would stand little chance of being able to recover him and my first gorilla would have been killed in vain. Overhanging the edge of the chasm there was a lone tree, two feet in diameter, and the gorilla in his plunge struck this tree, rolled up on its leaning trunk, and back again to its base, where he came to rest with his head hanging over on one side of the tree and his feet on the other. Had there been a single movement in him he must have gone on. The solid from the right barrel had done its work well—in just above the heart through the æorta, through the spine, and out through the right shoulder blade. As he came crashing down I somehow felt confident that all was well. I have never had a more thrilling experience, but I've been much more frightened many times. The gun-bearer was a trump. He was the worst scared black man I ever saw. If I looked as frightened as he, I am thankful no movie camera was on the job. You see, he was between me and the beast when he struck the trail eight feet away.

I had left the cameras and tools in camp to be sent for if they were needed. As the beast lay, a camera could not be used. I could do nothing in sketches worth while, so I sent for nothing. I set to work with my jack-knife and one of the boys had a native iron knife and with these two tools we skinned and skeletonized the gorilla. As we turned him over it kept all hands busy to avoid losing the balance of the beast and ourselves. It took more than a half hour to get the skin and skeleton back to where I had shot from—a human rope stunt. The boys all worked beautifully. Then we had the long, hard trek back to camp.

All hands in camp (forty odd) got a present—enough so that they were all happy, although that did not take much. I was busy all the following day with skin and skeleton, making such studies as were possible. Everything was set for a real hunt on the next day, but I could not hope for a more thrilling and dramatic episode than the taking of my first gorilla.

CHAPTER XII ADVENTURES ON MT. MIKENO

The day after I shot my first gorilla on the slopes of Mikeno I spent in camp. I should have preferred to spend it resting, for the day before had been a strenuous one, especially for a man suffering from blood poisoning, as I was. I had had it for some time and had lost about twenty pounds during the preceding three weeks. This left me in a weakened condition and a rest would have been welcome. Had I been hunting merely to kill I should have laid off a day. But science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings. I had skinned the old gorilla roughly in the field the day before. If I wanted properly to preserve the specimen, there was no time to be lost. I set the Negroes at work cleaning the skeleton, keeping an eye on them as I worked at other things to see that they did not lose any of the bones. I had personally to take care of the feet, hands, and head. This latter I set up and photographed. Then I made a death mask of the face. The brains and internal organs I had to preserve in formalin. The whole business was a full hard day's work. One of the chief difficulties with scientific collecting is the necessity for doing all the skinning, cleaning, measuring, and preserving at once. For one man one gorilla properly attended to is a full day's work. If a man gets two or three specimens, he has to keep working night and day until he gets them done.

This is one of the reasons why, although great numbers of animals are shot in Africa, there is so comparatively little scientific and taxidermical data about them. This day I was up about daybreak. I had an English breakfast, most of which had come from London with me—tea, toast, marmalade, and bacon. From then until dark I measured and skinned and preserved, and when night came I rolled into my blankets and slept the sleep of exhaustion.

When daybreak came I was ready to start again. Had I felt certain of finding gorillas in that country as easily as I now know they can be found I might have waited a day. But I had come 15,000 miles to see gorillas and I couldn't wait for the fulfillment of my hopes, nor did the ease of finding my first prize assure me that I was certain of getting the others I wanted.

We set out in the same direction as on the previous hunt. In the woods on these mountain sides the ground growth is extremely thick, and as high up as we went there were no elephant or other paths. It was necessary to go through the woods. The natives' method of travelling is to cut a trail as they proceed. They used a hooked knife of great effectiveness with which to cut the undergrowth. The stuff is thick enough to impede one's progress, but far worse than that it is filled with nettles, so that unless it is cut out in this way one is constantly and unmercifully stung. That is bad enough for a white man who is clothed, but is even worse for the blacks who wear nothing to protect them. Nevertheless, cutting as they go, the natives make pretty good time, perhaps two miles an hour up hill and down. Anyway, I found that I had all I could do to keep up with them; weak as I was, I had frequently to slow them down.

In this way we had passed over several ridges when we came on the trail of a band of gorillas. The trail they make is plain enough, for the undergrowth is so thick that each of the animals leaves a kind of swath of bent and broken greenery. Their trail led us along the side of a steep slope, so steep that every move had to be made with caution. If the gorilla was in the habit of travelling either far or fast, catching up with him in this country would be a heart-breaking if not an impossible task. But I believe the gorilla normally travels only from three to five miles a day. He loafs along through the forest, eating as he goes. As the trail we found was fresh it was likely that the gorillas were not far away. And so it turned out. We had followed for perhaps an hour when a dislodged rock thundering down into the chasm about two hundred yards ahead of us gave a clue to their whereabouts, and so we sat tight and soon located them by moving bushes, across a bit of a bay formed by a curve of the ridge. There I saw a big female and very foolishly tried a shot with the Springfield. I suppose in justification of my lack of faith in the thing it missed fire twice and by the time I got the big gun in hand the female had disappeared and a big silver-backed male was in sight.

He was about 150 yards away. He was just disappearing when I got the big gun to my shoulder and I had to shoot quickly. I fired and missed. They disappeared, and I fully appreciated what an ass I had been. We scrambled on for an hour more—the hillside becoming higher and more precipitous every minute. At last a slight movement of the bush above made us aware of their presence.

The fact that we came up with them again after my shooting was pretty good evidence that even when disturbed the gorilla does not travel either far or fast. The experience I had had with my first gorilla two days before corroborated this. He had, in fact, run only about 300 yards after first seeing us before stopping. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that the gorilla can run fast. Unlike animals that catch others for food, the gorilla, who eats vegetation, does not have to run for his dinner. Neither does he have to run to escape serving as dinner for some other animals. His legs, compared to his weight, are small and, in relation to man's, very short. On fair footing I think the average man could outrun a gorilla.

Where we came in sight of this band there was no friendly tree to lean against as there had been in the case of the first gorilla. The hillside was so steep that it was difficult to find footing from which to shoot. For a slight sense of security I entangled myself in a bush and stood ready to shoot.

There was not the straight drop of the other day but a steep slope which could be done on all fours—for twenty feet—and then straight down two hundred feet. I got a fair sight of an old black female and it looked as though the bushes she was in would hold her if I killed her instantly. She was fifty feet away. I fired and she came exactly as the other one had—the slope was so steep it was practically a fall—and straight at me. I tried to dodge but could not as the recoil of the gun had caused me to lose my balance a bit and I could not recover in time. I threw myself flat, face down, just in time and she passed over me. It was so steep and the mass of green stuff going with her so softened things that I merely felt her—there was no perceptible shock, but when I got up I had a great welt on the top of my head which she had caused. As I partially rose there seemed to be an avalanche of gorillas. There was a big ball of black fur, squealing madly, rolling past—actually touching me—in the wake of the old one. I took a shot at it as it went over, and, by the time I had recovered and reloaded, two others that had been close by had disappeared.

I believe that to be the fastest charge ever made by a gorilla against man. I think it was pushed home with more abandon than any other on record. I am almost certain of these two statements, the particular reason for my certainty being that the gorilla, when she charged or more correctly speaking fell down the hill, was dead and she couldn't have any of the hesitations which I believe prevent such charges by live gorillas. The others followed her not in anger but in fear and because they accepted her lead without realizing that it was involuntary. If their charge had been aimed at me they had plenty of time to knock me off the mountain side before I could get up and shoot again, and the Negroes, being armed only with spears and hanging on a precipitous slope, were almost as defenceless.

I began to feel a good deal of confidence in my theory that the gorilla is not a ferocious beast, although I was gaining the utmost respect for his size and power. If being molested by man would make gorillas ferocious and aggressive, these animals should have been excessively dangerous, for within a very short time the Prince of Sweden had shot fourteen of them, and Barnes had killed several more. The very animals that I followed had probably heard the guns of these other men. Yet I could see no signs of ferocity. When I came up with the old male that I had killed first, he had run back and forth on the hillside barking in protest or surprise at my intrusion just as I have seen little monkeys run back and forth on a limb and bark; but of his having savage intentions against me I saw no sign. Of the two I was the savage and the aggressor. In the case of the female I had just shot, the same was true, even though she was accompanied by her baby. She evidently preferred to get away if possible. Cornered, I think and hope she would fight for her young.

What became of the last two animals I do not know. The black fur ball that I had fired at was, I believe, the four-year-old son of the old female. He apparently caught on somewhere, for a half hour later when we were trying to find a way down we came across him and, as he ran about, one of the guides speared him. I came up before he was dead. There was a heartbreaking expression of piteous pleading on his face. He would have come to my arms for comfort.

About this time the chasm filled with a fog so dense that we could not move with safety. Another half hour and the fog was cleared by a heavy cold rain and hail and we continued to search for a way down to the dead gorilla. The Negroes had worked earnestly, but they gave up and said it could not be done. Poor devils, they were stark naked in that icy rain; God knows how they lived through it. When they gave up they gave up for good apparently, stood shaking with cold, making no effort to find shelter from the rain. I took off my Burberry raincoat and got seven of them under it with me.

In such proximity to seven naked natives almost all of my senses were considerably oppressed and I was grateful when the rain lessened so that I might put them at a more respectful as well as a more comfortable distance. The others had huddled under an old tree root. All came out and we looked over the situation. We were on the side of a ridge of Mikeno. Where we were there was vegetation and a fair foothold. Below and above us were stretches of sheer rock. Not far from us a little stream fell off the shelf where we were, in a clear fall of 200 feet. The gorilla was somewhere near the bottom of that fall. The natives insisted that it was impossible to get to the dead animal. To go straight down was impossible. But I felt that there might be a chance to work along sideways in a patch of vegetation until we could get down to a lower level. By working back and forth on the face of the mountain side in this way I hoped to reach the dead gorilla. However, I soon realized that if I wanted to try this somewhat hazardous experiment I should have to lead the way, for the blacks had nothing greater than a few days' wages at stake while I had one of the prizes of a long and expensive expedition. So I swung down on the overhanging roots of a tree and began the descent with the natives following. It took a surprisingly long time for us to get down the 200 feet, and it finally turned out that the route that I took led off to one side where I could not reach the gorilla when I had descended to her level. Twenty or thirty feet farther down I managed to cross to the stream-bed and then went up the stream to the bottom of the falls and from there to where the body lay. Where the stream-bed was steepest, we literally had the water falling on our heads as we scrambled up.

It was a tough job skinning and skeletonizing her. In the first place, I was tired and she was heavy, and in the second place if she was turned over with anything but the utmost care she was likely to roll off down into the chasm below. Nor could I get much assistance from the boys, for there was only room enough for a man or two to help. However, in some manner we managed a satisfactory job in everything but one particular. The camera boy had come down but the tripod carrier never appeared. If it had been an ordinary camera the loss of the tripod would have made little difference, but it was the moving-picture camera, and a moving-picture camera without a tripod is useless.

It was well past mid-afternoon when the skin and bones were ready to move to camp.

As I worked I had kept wondering how we were ever to get up out of the chasm, especially with the added burdens we had acquired. I am still wondering how we did get out. The "human fly" was no more remarkable than those black boys. My heart was in my mouth for an hour watching them work their way up the almost perpendicular wall of that chasm with the skin and skeleton. We got to camp just before dark in a pouring rain, and I am free to confess that during the last hour I several times doubted if I should get in. It was beyond doubt the toughest day I ever spent. Never again—not for all the gorillas and museums in the world. I spent the next day in camp working on the two specimens—the female and the baby that had been speared—and finally had three beautiful gorilla skins all safe under the fly of my tent. They were so well assorted that they would make a very satisfactory group if I got no more. I had death masks of each and skeletons of the two old ones; but the four-year-old, a vigorous young male, I skinned with infinite care and preserved the entire carcass with formalin and salt—a precious anatomical record for sculptural and taxidermic use.

The gun boys and guides came the following morning and said they were going home. It took an hour, money, and many promises to make them change their minds. Heaven knows I did not blame them. I would not do what they had done for money.

However, I did not start again. Although I had worked one whole day on the last two gorillas I had some things still to do and I felt that with enough material on hand for a good group even if I got no more I could go a bit easier. So I stayed in camp another day and planned a gorilla hunt for the moving-picture camera. On the side hills where we had been hunting there was no possible hope of using a camera so I told the boys if they took me in any such places again I would annihilate them. Not only would it be useless for the camera but I felt that I couldn't stand another such trip myself. So they promised me an easier route, and equipped with photographic outfit we started off in the direction of the Saddle between Mikeno and Karisimbi. It seemed a very stiff climb to me in the beginning, but I have learned since that it was chiefly because of my extreme weakness. Before I had been out an hour I was sorely tempted to return to camp and give it up; but we came upon a fresh trail of a band of gorillas which for some reason or other the guides followed only a short distance, continuing on in the same general direction in which we had started, without any encouragement, until it seemed that we had gone to the crest of the Saddle. There, as the result of a conference between the guides, we started in a southerly direction intending to work in a roundabout way back to camp. Camp was the only thing that I was interested in, for at this time I was practically "done."

Ten minutes later the guides ducked, and crouching, came back and fell in behind me. I took the gun from the bearer, and looking over the tops of the greenery of a little rise in front of us I saw a spot of black fur perhaps fifty yards ahead. As I crouched, waiting for a better view, the animal I was watching climbed up on a nearly horizontal branch of a tree looking back in my direction. In the meantime, the motion-picture camera had been brought to my side. I raised it carefully, put it in position, and all this time another larger gorilla was making the ascent of the horizontal branch of the tree. It was apparently an old mother and her two-year-old baby. Almost before I knew it I was turning the crank of the camera on two gorillas in full view with a beautiful setting behind them. I do not think at the time that I appreciated the fact that I was doing a thing that had never been done before. As I ground away, a second baby came scrambling up a near-by tree. The baby seemed very much interested in the operation. The mother professed indifference and a certain amount of boredom and after a bit pretended to lie down on one arm and go to sleep. The babies, one of them at least, seemed to be amused. He would stand up, fold his arms and slap them against his breast, which suggested uproarious laughter on his part.

When I had turned off about one hundred feet with my heart in my mouth for fear the thing would come to an end too soon, I realized that I had as much of that particular subject as I wanted, there being no great amount of movement. So I changed the two-inch lens for the six-inch lens in order to make a "closeup." When I had taken about three hundred feet I felt that I would like a change of scene; so with my hand on the camera I stood up straight and tried to start a conversation with them. They all bolted.

It was amazing what an effect that minute or two of experience had on me physically. I forgot my weariness and took up the trail. For the next hour we followed them, getting glimpses of them frequently. There were probably ten or twelve in the band; but never again did I get the opportunity to photograph them—just little glimpses of black fur dodging about through the greenery. At one time with my glasses I watched them across a ravine for a considerable time. The old female was lying down on her back yawning and stretching, but she was too far away for a photograph. So finally, feeling that I had about all I could expect from that band, I picked out one that I thought to be an immature male. I shot and killed it and found, much to my regret, that it was a female. As it turned out, however, she was such a splendid large specimen that the feeling of regret was considerably lessened. This female had a baby which was hustled off by the rest of the band. The baby was crying piteously as it went.

This, added to the specimens on hand, brought the material for the group to one old male, two females, and a young male of about four years of age.

That night as I came into camp my mind went back to a certain day eleven years before when I was hunting lions on the Uasin Gishu Plateau with a moving-picture camera. A most wonderful opportunity had then been given me. Full in front of me the native hunters had drawn a lion's charge and killed the lion with their spears. But the opportunity had been as short-lived as it was magnificent, and the kind of camera I had then could not be handled that quickly. As I walked back to camp that night, I was determined to make a naturalist's moving-picture camera that would prevent my missing such a chance if ever such a one came my way again. From 1910 to 1916 I worked on this camera whenever I had a minute to spare. By 1917 I had the pleasure of knowing that it was used on observation planes destined for the battlefields of France. I had myself never had a chance to try my invention, except experimentally, until this trip to Africa. On this expedition I had brought two—a large one for panorama work and a smaller one nicknamed "the Gorilla" for animal work. "The Gorilla" had taken 300 feet of film of the animal that had heretofore never been taken alive in its native wilds by any camera, still or moving. Few things have given me greater satisfaction than the realization that the failure of 1910 had led directly to the success of 1921.

To make assurance doubly sure, as night came on I had a fire made in the door of my tent and comforted by its warmth I took a little piece of the end of the film and developed it. It was all right. I took another sample from the middle. It, too, came out strong. I was satisfied—more satisfied than a man ever should be—but I revelled in the feeling.

CHAPTER XIII THE LONE MALE OF KARISIMBI

By November 14th, I felt about as happy and about as unhappy as I ever have in my life. I felt exceedingly well about the success of my gorilla hunts. I had four fine specimens for the group which I intended to mount for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and I had several hundred feet of moving-picture film of live gorillas in their native forests—the first photographs of live wild gorillas ever taken. I also had the fever and that was what I was unhappy about. It was not only uncomfortable but it also threatened to interfere seriously with my plans and to put me in an embarrassing position with the rest of the party. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller were camped at Kissenyi two days' march away. It had been agreed that I should investigate the gorillas alone first, but it was not contemplated that I get sick during the investigation and not be ready to provide hunting for them. They had come all the way to Central Africa to hunt gorillas and the obligation rested on me to see that they had that experience. I was afraid that if I did not get them up into the gorilla mountains quickly, I might not be in shape to fulfil this obligation and pleasure. So I sent a rather urgent message that they come up to my camp. Solicitation for my health and keenness for the hunt led Bradley and the two ladies to make the two days' march in one.

This taking ladies to hunt gorillas had caused a certain amount of adverse comment of two kinds. The uninitiated in African hunting censored me for leading the ladies into such terrible dangers. The initiated, or rather some of them, were a little irritated with me because if I showed that ladies with no previous hunting experience could hunt gorillas, elephants, and lions, much of the heroics which have attached to African big-game hunting would begin to wane. As a naturalist interested in preserving African wild life, I was glad to do anything that might make killing animals less attractive.

I had never been in gorilla country before this trip, but I had started in with the firm conviction that hunting gorillas was not dangerous, or, of course, I should not have taken the two ladies to hunt them. My experiences proved my theory even more thoroughly than I had expected. Consequently, when the ladies arrived I was prepared to take them after gorillas without the slightest misgivings. After a day of rest at the camp from which I had hunted, we moved our base a thousand feet higher up (to about 10,000 feet above sea level) to the Saddle between the two mountains, Mikeno and Karisimbi. We had two good-sized tents, one for Mrs. Bradley and Miss Miller and the other for Bradley and me. We had a fly also for a dining tent. These arrangements were quite comfortable except for the cold. It was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit at night at the Saddle Camp. There was an old five-gallon metal cask with holes in it which when filled with coals made a fair stove for the women's tent, but the men's tent and the mess tent gave one very little feeling of the tropics, in spite of the fact that we were very near the equator. But if we were cold our plight was not to be compared to the condition of the porters, gun-bearers, and guides. They had little or no clothing and they spent the night in hovels which they constructed in various places around camp, the chief characteristic of which was a limited space which insured crowding and a roof which would keep off the rain.