380 ZOOLOGY 



Wheu we reached Belgian territorv, on the west side of the Seniliki 

 River, our inquiries were renewed. The Belgian officers at once said 

 they knew the okapi perfectly well, having frequently seen its dead hody 

 brought in bv natives for eatina;'. Thev stated that the natives were verv 

 fond of wearing the more gaudy portions of its skin ; and calling forward 

 several of their native militia, they made the men show all the bandoliers, 

 waist-belts, and other parts of their equijiment made out of the striped 

 skin of the okapi. They described the animal as a creature of the horse 

 tribe, but with large, ass-like ears, a slender muzzle, and more than one 

 hoof. For a time I thought we were on the track of the three-toed horse, 

 the hipparion. Provided with guides, we entered the awesome depths of 

 the Congo Forest. For several days we searched for the okapi, but in 

 vain. We were shown its supposed tracks by the natives, but as these 

 were footprints of a clov^en-hoofed animal, while we expected to see the 

 spoor of a horse, we believed the natives to be deceiving us, and to be 

 merelv leading us after some forest eland. The atmosphere of the forest 

 was almost im breathable with its Turkish-bath heat, its reeking moisture, 

 and its powerful smell of decaying, rotting vegetation. We seemed, in 

 fact, to be transported back to Miocene times, to an age and a climate 

 scarcely suitable for the modern type of real humanity. Severe attacks 

 of fever prostrated not only the Europeans, but all the black men of the 

 party, and we were obliged to give up the search and return to the grass- 

 lands with such fragments of the skin as I had been able to purchase from 

 the natives. Seeing my disappointment, the Belgian officers very kindly 

 promised to use their best efforts to procure a perfect skin of the okapi. 



Some months afterwards, the pi'omise was kept by ]Mr. Karl Eriksson. 

 a Swedish officer in the service of the Congo Free State, who obtained 

 from a native soldier the body of a recently killed okapi. He had the 

 skin removed with much care, and sent it to me accompanied by the skull 

 of the dead animal, and a smaller skull which he had obtained separately. 

 The skin and skulls were forwarded to liOndon, where they arrived after 

 considerable delay, The British ]Museum entrusted the setting up of the 

 okapi to ]Mr. Eowland Ward, of Piccadilly, and from the mounted skin 

 and other data I have inade the drawings which illustrate this book, though 

 the coloured drawing was, in the main, done in Africa from the skin, 

 whilst this was fresh and still retained some indication of the animal's 

 form. The colours of the hair were brighter before the skin made its 

 journey to London. This coloured drawing originally differed in some 

 particulars from the appearance of the okapi as set up l\v Mr. Rowland 

 Ward. Until the okapi has been photographed alive or dead, and its 

 exact shape in the flesh is thus known, it is difficult to say which of the 

 two versions of my water-colour drawing is the more correct — that published 



