()62 THK OK API OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



dwarfs lo perforin at the Paris Exhibition. These little men had been 

 kidnaped on Kong-o Free State territory. The Belgian authorities 

 very properly objected, and as the German impressario had tied with 

 his dwarfs to British territor} , they asked me to rescue the little men 

 from his clutches and send them back to their homes. This I did, and 

 in so doing-, and in leading them back to the forests where they dwelt, 

 I obtained much information from them on the subject of the horse- 

 like animal which they called the ''okapi.'"" They described this 

 creature as being like a zebra, but having the upper part of its body 

 a dark brown. The feet, however, they said, had more than one hoof. 



^^'hen 1 reached Belgian territory, on the west side of the Semliki 

 River, I renewed my inquiries. The Belgian officers at once said they 

 knew the okapi perfectly well, having frequently seen its dead body 

 In-ought in by natives for eating. They informed me that the natives 

 were ver}' fond of wearing the more gaud}^ portions of its skin; and 

 calling forward several of their native militia, thej^ made the men show 

 me all the bandoliers, waist belts, and other parts of their equipment 

 made out of the striped skin of the okapi. They described the animal 

 as a creature of the horse tribe, but with large, ass-like ears, a slender 

 muzzle, and more than one hoof. For a time I thought I was on the 

 track of the three-toed horse, the hipparion. Provided with guides, 

 I entered the awful depths of the Kongo forest with my expedition, 

 accompanied also by Mr. Doggett, the naturalist attached to ni}^ staff. 

 For several days we searched for the okapi, but in vain. We were 

 shown its supposed tracks by the natives, but as these were footprints 

 of a cloven-hoofed animal, while we expected to see the spoor of a 

 horse, we believed the natives to be deceiving us, and to be merely 

 leading us after some forest eland. The atmosphere of the forest was 

 almost unbreathable with its Turkish-bath heat, its reeking moisture, 

 and its powerful smell of decaying, rotting vegetation. We seemed, 

 in fact, to be transported back to IVIiocene times, to an age and a cli- 

 mate scarcel}^ suitable for the modern type of real humanity. Severe 

 attacks of fever prostrated not only the Europeans, but all the black 

 men of the party, and we were obliged to give up the search and return 

 to the grass lands with such fragments of the skin as 1 had been able 

 to purchase from the natives. Seeing my disappointment, the Belgian 

 officers veiy kindly promised to use their best efforts to procure me a 

 perfect skin of the okapi. 



Some months afterwards the promise was kept by Mr. Karl Eriks- 

 son, a Swedish officer in the service of the Kongo Free State, who 

 obtained from a native soklier the body of a recently killed okapi. 

 He had the skin removed with much care, and sent it to me accom- 



=' As a matter of fact, the dwarfs pronounced the word "o'api," but tlu- big ))la(k 

 tribes of the forest called the creature " okapi." 



