204 In the Heart of Africa 



by night to the watercourses, but remains concealed in shy 

 seclusion during daylight. According to the experiences of 

 Europeans familiar with the Congo, many tracks have been found 

 quite close together, as though produced by the passing of a 

 herd. Although we have not had an opportunity of proving 

 the truth of this statement, it certainly seems that the okapi is 

 not so rare as has been generally accepted, for, as already 

 mentioned, one often comes across girdles made from its hide. 

 Again, the animal is familiar to all the forest dwellers. 



The title " kenge " was often also applied to another variety 

 of antelope, which equals the okapi in size. This is the great 

 striped antelope (Booceros spec), which exists throughout the 

 Congo forest. On the eastern edge of the forest it is called 

 " soli," and " bongo " in the Middle and Lower Congo. The 

 buttocks are far less striking than those of the okapi. A further 

 mark of difference is that it bears horns about 50 centimetres in 

 length, which undoubtedly betrays its kinship with the bush- 

 buck. The horns have the same peculiar twist, and are quite of 

 the bush-buck type. The skin is light and covered on the back 

 with a number of uniform white stripes, similar to those of the 

 elephant antelope. Fortune favoured us in this connection, for 

 we managed to obtain a skin and a skeleton from the forest 

 dwellers. 



Another pleasant surprise for us was the acquisition of a 

 brown hide, showing a yellow stripe along the back which grows 

 broader from withers to tail ; it comes from an animal named 

 " lotzi " by the Wambuba, and " dotzi " by the Wambutti. We 

 were further able to enrich our collections with the hide of a 

 brownish-silver-grey sort of antelope called " sindo " in King- 

 wana, " haissuku " in Kinande, and a light brown coloured one, 

 the "munso." The two latter belong to the dwarf type. Both 

 were dedicated to a German museum as the first examples of 

 their kind. 



A three days' halt in a former pygmy camp resulted in a 

 few specimens of monkeys — after some real hard stalking — and 

 Wiese contributed an elephant which, to judge by its general 



