234 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
ters ahead with their loads to Burunga, but retaining 
our guides for another hunt in the bamboos. 
We had descended well down toward the lower 
level of the bamboo when the guide led us along a 
cattle trail up a ridge of Mikeno. We came toa track 
of a single old male gorilla on this trail, which, after 
we had followed it for a half hour, had been joined 
by others. Ultimately we were on a perfectly fresh 
trail of a whole band. The purpose of the hunt was 
to get more pictures and to add to our series one 
more specimen, a young male if possible. At this 
time I had not seen more than one male with a gorilla 
band and I felt that a group of two old males, two 
females, and a youngster of four years would be 
misleading; that if I used them I would have to 
use one of the old males as an intruder in the family 
group. I had to explain to my gun-bearer that we 
must go slowly because I did not want to come up 
with the gorillas in jungle so dense that I could not 
photograph them; and that we must try to manage 
not to disturb them until they had come to more 
open country where the chance for observation would 
be better. We were near the edge of a ravine the 
opposite slope of which was cleared of bamboo and 
bush. I suggested to him that if we could possibly 
see them in a place like that, it would enable us 
to do the things that we wanted to do. Not that I 
actually hoped for any such luck; but as a matter 
of fact, fifteen minutes later we heard the bark of 
a gorilla. Peeping through the bush we saw the © 
entire band on that opposite slope, all of them in fulli 
