286 MASTER JOE. 



" With a groan, which had something terribly human in it 

 and yet was full of brutishness, he fell forward on his face. 

 The body shook convulsively for a few minutes, the limbs moved 

 about in a struggling way, and then all was quiet death had 

 done its work, and I had leisure to examine the huge body. It 

 proved to be five feet eight inches high, and the nrascular 

 development of the arms and breast showed what immense 

 strength it had possessed." 



It appears that the negroes, with all their horror of the Gorilla, 

 are yet exceedingly partial to its flesh, and on this occasion, after 

 the first expression of delight that the monster had been killed, 

 they immediately began to quarrel about the division of the 

 spoil. The brain is especially valued, and is carefully saved for 

 the purpose of making charms, which, prepared in one fashion, 

 gives the wearer a strong hand for the hunt, in another, finds 

 him favour with the gentle sex. 



On one occasion, M. du Chaillu's hunters procured him, to his 

 great joy, a young Gorilla alive. It was a little fellow between 

 two and three years old, about two feet six inches in length, and 

 as fierce and stubborn a little rogue as could well be conceived. 

 The hunters had found him in the forest, seated on the ground, 

 eating berries which grew close to the earth, and a few feet 

 farther off sat his mamma, similarly occupied. The mother was 

 killed, and the youngster, taking refuge in a tree, was afterwards 

 secured, though not until one of the men received a severe bite on 

 the hand and another had a piece taken off his leg. " As the 

 little brute, though so diminutive, and the merest baby for age, 

 was astonishingly strong, and by no means good-tempered, they 

 could not lead him. He constantly rushed at them. So they 

 were obliged to get a forked stick, in which his neck was inserted 

 in such a way that he could not escape, and yet could be kept at 

 a safe distance. In this uncomfortable way he was brought into 

 the village. Here the excitement was intense ; as the animal 

 was lifted out of the canoe in which he had come a little way 

 down the river, he roared and bellowed, and looked around 

 wildly with his wicked little eyes, giving fair warning that if he 

 could only get at some of us he would take his revenge." 



A bamboo cage was at once got ready for Master Joe, as the 

 young gentleman was named, and various attempts were made to 

 evoke a little amiability, but he continued to the end of his days 



