XVI.] GORILLAS.— HILL-SIDE CULTIVATION. 209 



JSTiimeroiis small streams and torrents were to be seen as we April, 

 came along, and the liills were bold, but not very high — from 1^74. 

 four hundred to six hundred feet. ]^o villages were in sight, 

 as all the people lived inland behind the hills ; but some canoes 

 were hauled up in one or two places, and their owners could 

 not have been far off. 



On the 24th of April a good breeze again helped us along, 

 though it was rather puffy in the vicinity of the hills. An 

 hour was lost, through the men stopping to land, when they 

 looted a fisherman's hut, and I had the greatest trouble to get 

 the things returned. Bombay was among them, eating the 

 stolen fish. 



Passed Runangwa Eas and river of the same name — much 

 smaller than the Malagarazi — flowing into the lake ; very rocky, 

 high hills, a thousand feet and more, covered with trees to their 

 summits. The rocks were granite, and light-colored soft sand- 

 stone. 



Here I saw some gorillas (soko), black fellows, looking larger 

 than men. Before I could get a shot, the boat slipped round a 

 point which covered them ; and on putting back to have another 

 look at them, they had vanished. They are said by the natives 

 to build a fresh house every day. 



For three hours we were searching for a camping-place ; but 

 with a multiplicity of rocks, and no beach or place where it was 

 possible to lay up the boats, we met with constant disappoint- 

 ments. I was greatly consoled at knowing that we were get- 

 ting over the ground more quickly than if camps were easily 

 found, although an hour's daylight would have been valuable 

 to me for working at my map after lying up for the night. 



The next day we camped at Katupi village, where ivory was 

 ten doti a f rasilah, and good slaves five doti each. A Wangwa- 

 na trading there told me that from Chakuola they get to Unyan- 

 yembe in about twenty days. 



From this place we passed many small villages and shambas, 

 with cultivation on the sides of hills as steep as Swiss terraces ; 

 only, instead of being regularly terraced, there were irregular 

 retaining -walls of loose stones at intervals, and the soil was 

 left nearly at its natural slope. The people working there 

 looked like flies on a wall. 



