ON THE HUNTING GROUND. 13 



their master. They advanced through the brushwood, 

 which was dense and sombre, though it was broad day. 

 Unfortunately, the circle had been too much enlarged. 

 The watchful gorillas saw the hunters. Suddenly a 

 strange discordant, half-human devilish cry arose, and 

 they beheld four young gorillas running towards the 

 deep forests. With their heads bent down, and their 

 bodies stooping, they gave the idea of men who were 

 flying for their lives. They resembled to a frightful 

 degree hairy men. 



" I protest," continues M. du Chaillu, " I felt almost 

 like a murderer when I saw the gorillas this first time. 

 Take with this their awful cry, which, fierce and ani- 

 mal as it is, has yet something human in its discor- 

 dance, and you will cease to wonder that the natives 

 have the wildest superstitions about these wild men of 

 the woods. They all fired at once, but hit nothing; 

 then the hunters rushed on in pursuit : they ran until 

 they were exhausted, but in vain. The alert beasts 

 knew the woods better than their enemies, and so made 

 good their escape. " 



So far, then, it was a failure ; but at least M. du 

 Chaillu could boast of having seen living gorillas, 

 and he lost no time in endeavouring to see them again, 

 and more closely. 



Some days after this fruitless hunt, the intrepid trar 

 veller and his friends the Mbondemos., starting early in 



