ADVENTURES ON MT. MIKENO 213 
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, catch- 
ing 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, eat- 
ing 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 
