A FEMALE GORILLA. 213 
sisters of mine were killed, also several other people of 
the village. Then we moved toward the banks of the 
Ovenga; wesoon came down the stream, and now I have 
grown a man, and live where my village is. I only wish 
you would live all the time among us. We should take 
such care of you.” | 
After fixing our fires we went to sleep, and early the 
next morning we made for our camp. We had hardly 
gone two miles into the woods, when lo! I heard a kind 
of chuckle which told me that a gorilla was not far off. 
The sound came from a densely-wooded and dark ra- 
vine, and from the very bottom of it. When we reached 
the place we found it to be one of those ugly bogs where 
you go knee-deep into the mud, walking on the roots of 
trees, and sometimes get stuck fast in this position. 
The gorilla was right in the midst of the bog; it was 
a femaleyand at every moment we expected to see a large 
male standing before us, roaring like a demon, and asking 
us what we came to do in this dark recess of the forest, 
where it had made its abode with his wife, and perhaps 
his baby gorilla. 
How carefully we looked at our guns! how watchful 
our eyes were! We were not to be easily surprised. 
The bog was like one of the worst kind we have in Amer- 
ica in the overflowed and woody land of the Western 
country; only here we have creepers, thorny bushes, and 
hanging lianas, and grass that cuts like a razor. 
We entered the swamp, and went nearer and nearer the 
sound we had heard first, and came to a dry spot, when lo! 
we spied a female gorilla and her young baby. The 
baby was very small, a very dear little baby it-was to its 
mother, for she appeared with her extremely black face, 
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