The Gorilla Hunters

Mak looked at me in amazement.

“What for you be do dat, massa?”

“To prevent you from committing murder, you rascal,” said I, laughing. “Have you no feelings of natural pity or tenderness, that you could coolly aim at such a loving pair as that?”

The guide seemed a little put out by this remark, and went on reloading his gun without making reply. He had received enough of moral education at the mission stations to appreciate to some extent the feelings by which I was actuated; yet he had been so long accustomed and so early inured to harsh, unfeeling deeds, that the only idea that probably occurred to him on seeing this mother and her baby was, how near he could get to them in order to make sure of his aim.

“Ah! Ralph,” said Jack, as we resumed our march, “you’re too tender-hearted, my boy, for a hunter in Africa. There you’ve lost a chance of getting a gorilla baby, which you have been desiring so much the last few days, and which you might have stuck in a bottle of spirits, and sent home to be held up to universal admiration in Piccadilly, who knows.”

“Ay, who knows?” echoed Peterkin. “I think it more probable, however, that it would be held up to universal ridicule. Besides, you forget that we have no spirits to preserve it in, except our own, which I admit are pretty high—a good deal overproof, considering the circumstances in which we are placed, and the unheard-of trials we have to endure. I’m sure I don’t know what ever induced me to come, as a Scotch cousin of mine once said, ‘so far frae my ain fireside’ to endure trials. I do believe I’ve had more trials since I came to this outrageous land than all the criminals of the last century in England put together have had.”

“Peterkin,” said I seriously, “trials are a decided benefit and blessing to mankind—”

“Oh, of course,” interrupted Peterkin; “but then, as you have often retorted upon me that I am of the monkey kind, I think that I could get on pretty well without them.”

“My opinion is that they are good both for man and monkey,” said Jack. “Just consider, now: it must have been a terrible trial for yon gorilla-mamma to hear a bullet pass within an inch of her head, and have her sweet little darling frightened almost out of its wits. Well, but just think of the state of satisfaction and rejoicing that she must be in now at having escaped. Had it not been for that trial she would now have been in her ordinary humdrum condition. I quite agree with Ralph that trials are really a blessing to us.”

“I declare it is quite refreshing to hear that you ‘agree’ with anybody, Jack,” rejoined Peterkin, in a tone of sarcasm.—“Perhaps Mr Rover will kindly enlarge on this most interesting subject, and give us the benefit of his wisdom.—And, Mak, you lump of ebony, do you keep a sharp lookout for gorillas in the meantime.”

The guide, whose appreciation of fun was very considerable, said, “Yis, massa,” grinned from ear to ear, in doing which he displayed a double row of tremendous white teeth, and pretended to be gazing earnestly among the bushes on either side in search of game, as he followed us. The moment we began to talk, however, I observed that he came close up behind, and listened with all his ears. If eager expansion indicates anything, I may add that he listened with all his eyes too!

“I shall have much pleasure in obliging you, Peterkin,” said I, with a smile. “And in the first place—”

“O Ralph, I entreat you,” interrupted Peterkin, “do not begin with a ‘first place.’ When men begin a discourse with that, however many intermediate places they may have to roam about in and enlarge on, they never have a place of any kind to terminate in, but go skimming along with a couple of dozen ‘lastlies,’ like a stone thrown over the surface of a pond, which, after the first two or three big and promising bounds, spends itself in an endless succession of twittering ripples, and finally sinks, somehow or nohow, into oblivion.”

“Ahem! Shakespeare?” said Jack.

“Not at all,” retorted Peterkin. “If anybody gave utterance to the sentiment before, it was Shelley, and he must have been on the sea-shore at the time with a crotchet, if not a crab, inside of him.—But pray go on, Ralph.”

“Well, then, in the first place,” I repeated with emphasis, whereat Peterkin sighed, “trials, when endured in a proper spirit, improve our moral nature and strengthen our hearts; the result of which is, that we are incited to more vigorous mental, and, by consequence, physical exertion, so that our nervous system is strengthened and our muscular powers are increased.”

“Very well put, indeed,” cried Peterkin. “Now, Ralph, try to forget your ‘secondly,’ omit your ‘thirdly,’ throw your ‘fourthly’ to the winds, and let your ‘first place’ be your ‘last place,’ and I’ll give you credit for being a wise and effective speaker.”

I gave in to my volatile friend at that time, as I saw that he would not allow me to go on, and, to say truth, I thought that I had exhausted my subject. But, after all, Peterkin did not require to be incited either to good thoughts or good actions. With all his exuberant fun and jocularity, he was at bottom one of the most earnest and attached friends I ever possessed. I have lived to know that his superficial lightness of character overlaid as deeply earnest and sympathetic a spirit as ever existed.

While we were thus conversing and wandering through the forest, we again came upon the fresh tracks of a gorilla, and from their great size we conjectured them to be those of a solitary male. It is a remarkable fact that among several of the lower animals we find specimens of that unnatural class of creatures which among men are termed old bachelors! Among the gorillas these solitaires are usually very large, remarkably fierce, uncommonly ugly, desperately vindictive, and peculiarly courageous; so much so that the natives hold them in special dread. It is of these wild men of the woods that their most remarkable and incredible stories are related.

“I don’t think it’s a gorilla at all,” said Jack, stooping down to examine the footprints, which in that place were not very distinct; “I think an elephant or a rhinoceros must have passed this way.”

“No, massa, them’s not deep ’nuff for dat. Hims be a gorilla—a bery big one, too.”

“Don’t let us talk then, lest we should scare it,” whispered Peterkin. “Lead the way, Mak; and mind, when we come close enough, move your great carcass out of the way and let me to the front.”

“No, no, lad,” said Jack. “Fair play. It’s my turn now.”

“So be it, my boy. But get on.”

The tracks led us a considerable distance deeper into the wood, where the trees became so thick that only a species of twilight penetrated through them. To add to our discomfort, the light, we knew, would soon fail us altogether, as evening was drawing on apace, so we quickened our pace to a smart run.

We had not proceeded far when we were brought to a sudden standstill by one of those awfully loud and savage roars which we at once recognised as being that of a gorilla. It sounded like what we might term barking thunder, and from its intensity we were assured that our conjectures as to the creature being a solitary male gorilla were correct.

“Dat him, massas!” cried our guide quickly, at the same time cocking both barrels of his rifle. “Look hout! we no hab go after him no more. Him’s come to fight us. Most always doos dot—de big ole gorilla.”

We saw from the deeply earnest expression of the negro’s countenance that he felt himself now to be in a very serious position, which would demand all his nerve and coolness.

Again the roar was repeated with terrible loudness and ferocity, and we heard something like the beating of a huge bass drum, mingled with the cracking of branches, as though some heavy creature were forcing its way through the underwood towards us.

We were all much impressed with this beating sound, and, as is often the case when men are startled by sounds which they cannot account for, we were more filled with the dread of this incomprehensible sound than of the gorilla which we knew was approaching us. We might, indeed, have asked an explanation from Makarooroo, but we were all too much excited and anxious just then to speak.

We drew together in a group.

Jack, who stood a little in front of us, having claimed the first shot, was whispering something about its being a pity there was so little light, when his voice was drowned by a repetition of the roar, so appalling that we each started, feeling as though it had been uttered close to our ears. Next instant the bushes in front of us were torn aside, and the most horrible monster I ever saw, or hope to set eyes on, stood before us.

He was evidently one of the largest-sized gorillas. In the gloom of the forest he appeared to us to be above six feet high. His jet-black visage was working with an expression of rage that was fearfully satanic. His eyes glared horribly. The tuft of hair on the top of his head rose and fell with the working of his low wrinkled forehead in a manner that peculiarly enhanced the ferocity of his expression. His great hairy body seemed much too large for his misshapen legs, and his enormous arms much too long for the body. It was with the fists at the ends of those muscular arms that he beat upon his bulky chest, and produced the unaccountable sounds above referred to. As he stood there uttering roar upon roar—apparently with the view of screwing up his courage to attack us—displaying his great canine teeth, and advancing slowly, step by step, I felt a mingling of powerful emotions such as I had never felt before in all my life, and such as cannot by any possibility be adequately described.

I felt quite self-possessed, however, and stood beside my comrades with my rifle ready and my finger on the trigger.

“Now!” whispered Peterkin. But Jack did not move.

“Now!” said he again, more anxiously, as the immense brute advanced, beating its chest and roaring, to within eight yards of us. Still Jack did not move, and I observed that it was as much as Peterkin could do to restrain himself.

As it took the next step, and appeared about to spring, Jack pulled the trigger. The cap alone exploded! Like a flash of light the other trigger was pulled; it also failed! some moisture must have got into the nipples in loading. Almost as quick as thought Jack hurled his piece at the brute with a force that seemed to me irresistible. The butt struck it full in the chest, but the rifle was instantly caught in its iron gripe. At that moment Peterkin fired, and the gorilla dropped like a stone, uttering a heavy groan as it fell prone with its face to the earth—not, however, before it had broken Jack’s rifle across, and twisted the barrel as if it had been merely a piece of wire!

“That was a narrow escape, Jack,” said I seriously, after we had recovered from the state of agitation into which this scene had thrown us.

“Indeed it was; and thanks to Peterkin’s ever-ready rifle that it was an escape at all. What a monstrous brute!”

“Much bigger than the first one,” said Peterkin.—“Where is your measure, Ralph? Out with it.”

I pulled out my measure, and applying it to the prostrate carcass, found that the gorilla we had now shot was five feet eight inches in height, and proportionately large round the chest. It seemed to be a mass of sinews and hard muscles, and as I gazed at its massive limbs I could well imagine that it had strength sufficient to perform many, at least, if not all of the wonderful feats ascribed to it by the natives.

Shortly after the death of the gorilla, night settled down upon the scene, so we hurried back towards our camp, where we arrived much exhausted, yet greatly elated, by our successful day’s sport.

I spent a great part of that night making entries in my note-book, by the light of our camp-fires, while my companions slept. And, truly, I enjoyed such quiet hours after days of so great mental and physical excitement. I observed, also, that the negroes enjoyed those seasons exceedingly. They sat round the blaze, talking and laughing, and recounting, I have no doubt, their feats of daring by flood and field; then, when they began to grow sleepy, they sat there swaying to and fro, making an occasional remark, until they became too sleepy even for that, when they began to nod and wink and start, and almost fell into the fire, so unwilling did they seem to tear themselves away from it, even for the distance of the few feet they required to draw back in order to enable them to lie down. At last nature could hold out no longer, and one by one they dropped back in their places.

I, too, began to nod at last, and to make entries in my note-book which were too disjointed at last to be comprehensible; so I finally resigned myself to repose, and to dream, as a matter of course.

Chapter Fourteen.

Our Plans are Suddenly Altered—Wicked Designs Discovered

For several weeks after this we wandered about in the woods searching for gorillas. We were very successful, and shot so many that I had the satisfaction of making elaborate notes of specimens of nearly all ages and kinds.

But an event was looming in the future which we little thought of, and which ultimately compelled us to abandon the gorilla country and retrace our steps towards the southern part of the continent.

One day we set out, as was our wont, to hunt for gorillas, accompanied only by our faithful follower Makarooroo. It chanced to be a lovely day, and the country through which we were passing was exceedingly beautiful, so that we found more pleasure at that time in conversing together on the beauties of nature and on the wonderful works of nature’s God than in contemplating our chances of falling in with game.

“It’s a splendid country,” said Jack, as we walked along under the shade of some magnificent ebony trees. “I wish that it were inhabited by a Christian people. Perhaps this may be the case one of these days, but I don’t think we shall live to see it.”