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THE GORILLA IS SHOT. 57 
as though ready to clutch us, and just as he began 
another of his frightful roars, beating his breast with rage 
—whata huge hand he had !—TI fired, and killed him. 
With a groan that had something terribly human in 
it, and yet was full of brutishness, he fell forward on his 
face like a man when he is struck by a bullet in the 
chest. He shook convulsively for a few minutes, his 
limbs moved about in a struggling way, the tremor of 
the muscles ceased, and then all was quiet—death had 
done its work. 
The monster was hardly dead when I suddenly bedi 
to tremble all over, my lower jaw met my upper one ina 
way I did not like at all, and my men looked at me with 
their mouths wide open in perfect amazement. They 
could hardly believe their eyes, but having recovered 
themselves, they asked me what was the matter. I an- 
swered that I did not know, and that I had asked myself 
the same question. 
For fifteen minutes my jaws went on cracking against 
each other, and the more I tried to stop them the more 
they chattered. I felt awfully mortified ; but there was 
no help for it. 
I ss TN a time you will see; I shall not do it 
again.” I kept my word, but I never met a large male 
gorilla without thinking that it might be the last of me. 
There was great rejoicing, but it did not last long, 
for they soon began to quarrel about the apportionment 
of the meat. They really eat the creature, and the Fans 
told me that next to the flesh of man the gorilla meat 
was the best. It looked wonderfully like beef, only it 
seemed to be almost wholly composed of muscle. 
I saw that they would come to blows presently if I 
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