48 SEARCH FOR THE GORILLA AND THE IPL Chap. HI. 



form bower, under which they can sit, protected from 

 the rains by the masses of foliage thus entangled 

 together, some of the boughs being so bent that they 

 form convenient seats ; on them were found remains 

 of nuts and berries. 



I found Olenga-Yombi at his slave-plantation, 

 drunk as usual. His head wife, thinking to appease 

 my wrath at the vile habits of her husband, told me 

 the following curious story of the origin of the vice. 

 When he was quite a child his father used to put him 

 in a big bag which he had made for the purpose, and 

 carry him to the top of a high tree, where he plied 

 him with the intoxicating palm wine. Every day he 

 repeated the dose until the child came to like palm 

 wine better than its mother's milk, whereat the father 

 was greatly delighted, because he wished him to be 

 renowned, when he was grown up, for the quantity 

 of palm wine he could drink. " So you see, Chaillie," 

 she said, " you must not be angry with him, for it is 

 not his own fault." The wife, however, promised he 

 should keep sober whilst I was with him, and the 

 slaves, amusingly enough, in the presence of the king, 

 declared they would throw away every calabash of 

 wine that should be brought to his Majesty. 



I had not been at the village long before news came 

 that gorillas had been recently seen in the neighbour- 

 hood of a plantation only half a mile distant. Early 

 in the morning of the 25 th of June I wended my 

 way thither, accompanied by one of my boys, named 

 Odanga. The plantation was a large one, and 

 situated on very broken ground, surrounded by the 

 virgin forest. It was a lovely morning ; the sky was 



