78 WILD LIFE UNDER THE EQUATOR. 
and like him I gazed at the sea, but, unlike him, I thought 
of the dear friends who lived on the other side, and I 
blessed them ! 
Then, looking carefully at my gun, I left the place and 
continued my ramble, when lo! in the far distance I spied 
a gorilla! The beast did not see me: it was a female, 
and must have been half a mile from the sea. I hid my- 
self behind a tree in order to watch all her movements 
unseen. She was seated on the ground before a cluster 
of pine-apples, quietly eating one: she soon threw it away 
and plucked some of the leaves. How black the face 
was! She grinned now and then, probably from the joy 
the food gave her, when suddenly, to my utter astonish- 
ment, a little gorilla, about two feet and a half in height, 
’ came running to its mother, who gave a kind of chuckle 
that resembled very much the click of the Bushmen of 
Southern Africa. 
I began to be terribly excited. I must kill the moth- 
er and try to capture the young one. How sorry I was 
to be alone. I wished my men had been with me. 
Unfortunately there were many intervening trees, and 
she was about three hundred yards off. How could the 
bullet from my rifle reach her? I had just left my 
place of concealment when she perceived me. She utter- 
ed a piercing cry and disappeared, with her young one 
following her. 
_ When I returned to the camp every body had gone 
except Kombé, who had been left in charge. On my way 
back I took the sea-shore, and saw on the beach for the 
first time the foot-prints made by the hippopotami, and 
I wondered what they came to do so near the sea. So I 
followed one and was surprised to see their heavy foot- 
LE cig Gg : 
