up on the side of the cage, from which the tornado is coming. Now the leaves begin to rustle. It is the first cool breath of the day, but it is only the herald of the furious wind that is rapidly advancing. The tree-tops begin to sway. Now they are lashing each other as if in anger; the strong trees are bending from the wind; the lightning is so vivid that it is blinding; the thunder is terrific. One shaft after another, the burning bolts are hurled through the moaning forest. The roar of thunder is unceasing. I hear the dull thud of a falling tree, while the crackling boughs are falling all around me. The rain is pouring in torrents, and all nature is in a rage. Every bird and beast has sought a place of refuge from the warring elements. No sign of life is visible, no sound is audible, save the voice of the storm.
How unspeakably desolate the jungle is at such an hour, no fancy can depict. How utterly helpless a human being is against the wrath of nature, no one can realise, except to live through such an hour in such a place.
On one occasion five large trees were blown down, within a radius of two hundred yards of my cage, and scores of limbs were broken off by the wind, and scattered like straws. Some of them were six or eight inches in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long. One of them broke the corner off the bamboo roof over my cage. The limb was broken off a huge cotton-tree near by, and fell from a height of about sixty feet. It was carried by the wind some yards out of a vertical line as it fell, and just passed far enough to spare my cage. Had it struck the body of it, no doubt it would have been partly demolished, for the main body of the bough was about six inches in diameter and ten feet long. This particular tornado lasted for nearly three hours, and was the most violent of any I saw during the entire year.
Now the storm subsides, but the darkness is impenetrable. I have no light of any kind, for that would alarm the inhabitants of the jungle, and attract a vast army of insects from all quarters. Moses and the boy are fast asleep, while I sit and listen to the many strange and weird sounds heard in the jungle at night The bush crackles near by. It is a leopard creeping through it. He is coming this way. Slowly, cautiously he approaches. I cannot see him in the deep shadows of the foliage, but I can locate him by sound, and identify him by his peculiar tread. Perhaps he will attack the cage when he gets near enough. He is creeping up closer. He evidently smells his prey, and is bent on seizing it.
My rifle stands by my elbow. I silently raise it, and lay it across my lap. The brute is now crouching within a few yards of me, but I cannot see to shoot him. I hear him move again, as if adjusting himself to spring upon the cage. He cannot see it, but he has located me by scent. I hear a low rustling of the leaves as he wags his tail preparatory to a leap. If I could only touch a button and turn on a bright electric light over his head! He remains crouching near, while I sit with the muzzle of my rifle turned towards him, and my hand on the lock. It is a trying moment. If he should spring with such force as to break the frail network that is between us, there could be but one fate for me.
In the brief space of a few seconds a thousand things run through one's mind. Not prompted by fear, but by suspense. Is it best to fire into the black shadows, or to wait for his attack? What is his exact pose? What does he intend? How big is he? Can he see me? And a category of similar questions arise at this critical moment.
A clash of bushes, and he is gone. Not with the stealthy, cautious steps with which he advanced, but in hot haste. He has taken alarm, abandoned his purpose, and far away I can hear the dry twigs crashing as he hurries to some remote nook. He flees as if he thought he was being pursued. He is gone, and I feel a sense of relief.
It is ten o'clock, the low rumbling of distant thunder is all that remains of the tornado that swept over me a few hours ago. The stars are shining, but the foliage of the forest is so dense, that I can only see one here and there, peeping through the tangled boughs overhead. I hear some little waif among the dead leaves, but what it is, or what it wants, can only be surmised.
Another hour is passed, and I retire to my hammock. The sounds of nocturnal birds are fewer now. I hear a strange, tremulous sound up in the boughs of the bushes near the cage. It sounds like the leaves vibrating. It ceases, and begins again at intervals. I listen with attention, for it is very singular. It is a huge python in search of birds. He reaches his head and neck forward, grasps the bough of a slender bush, releases his coil from another, and by contraction draws his slimy body forward. The pliant boughs yield to his heavy weight. The abrasion causes it to tremble, and the leaves to quake.
I fall asleep and rest in comfort, while the dew that has fallen on the leaves gathers itself into huge drops, their weight bends the leaves, and they fall from their lofty perch, striking those far below with a sharp, popping sound. The hours fly by, but in the stillness of the early morning is heard a most unearthly scream. It is a king gorilla. He simply makes every leaf in the forest tremble with the sound of his piercing shrieks.
The dawn again awakes to life the teeming forest, and all its denizens again go forth to join the universal chase for food.
All of these incidents cited are true in every detail, but they did not occur every day, nor did all of them occur on the same day, as would be inferred from the manner in which they are related.
This gives a glimpse of my real daily life in the jungle, but the monotony was often relieved by going out for a day or two at a time, or hunting on the plains, a few miles away. My menu was occasionally varied by a chicken, piece of goat, fish or porcupine; but the general average of it was about as described.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHIMPANZEE
Next to man, the chimpanzee occupies the highest plane in the scale of nature. His mental and social traits, together with his physical type, assign him to this place.
In his distribution, he is confined to Equatorial Africa. His habitat, roughly outlined, is from the fourth parallel north of the equator to the fifth parallel south of it, along the west coast, and extends eastward about half-way across the continent. His range can be defined with more precision, but its exact limits are not quite certain. Its boundary on the north is defined by the Kameroon valley, slightly curving to the north, but its extent eastward is not well known. He does not appear to be found anywhere north of this river, and it is quite certain that the few specimens attributed to the north coast of the Gulf of Guinea do not belong to that territory. On the south, its boundary starts from the coast, at a point near the fifth parallel, curves northward, crossing the Congo near Stanley Pool, pursues a north-east course, to the centre of the Congo State, again curves southward, across the Upper Congo, towards the north end of Lake Tanganyika. Its limits appear to conform more to isothermal lines, than to the rigid lines of geometry.
Specimens are sometimes secured by collectors beyond the limits mentioned, but so far as I can ascertain they appear to have been captured within these limits. There are numerous centres of population. This ape is not strictly confined to any definite topography, but occupies the upland forests or the low basin lands.
In one section he is known to the natives by one name, and in another by quite a different one. The name chimpanzee is of native origin. In the Fiot tongue the name of the ape is chimpan, which is a slight corruption of the true name. It is properly a compound word, the first syllable is from the Fiot word tyi, which white men erroneously pronounce like "chee." It means "small," and is found in many of the native compounds. The latter syllable is from mpâ, a bushman, hence the word literally means, in the Fiot tongue, "a small bushman."
Among other tribes the common name of the ape is ntyigo. The two names appear to come from the same ultimate source. The latter is derived from the Mpongwe word ntyia, blood, hence breed, and the word iga, the forest, and literally means the "breed of the forest." The same idea is involved in the two names, and both convey the oblique idea that the animal is something more like man than other animals are.
There are two distinct types of this ape, and they are now regarded as two species. One of them is distributed throughout the entire habitat described, while the other is only known south of the equator, between the second and fifth parallels, and west of the Congo. Both kinds are found within these limits, but the variety which is confined to that region is called, by the tribes that know the ape, the kulu-kamba, in contradistinction to the other kind, known as ntyigo. This name is derived from kulu, the onomotope of the sound made by the