3D THE GORILLA. 



" Meantime Joe stood in the middle of the room, ex- 

 amining with some surprise the furniture. I watched 

 with fear, lest the ticking of my clock should strike his 

 ear, and perhaps lead to an assault upon that precious 

 article. 



" Finally, seeing him quite still, I despatched some 

 fellows for a net, and opening the door quickly, threw 

 this over his head; fortunately, we succeeded at the 

 first throw in fatally entangling the young monster, 

 who roared frightfully, and struck and kicked in every 

 direction under the net. I took hold of the back of 

 his neck, two men seized his arms, and another man 

 his legs, and thus held by four men, this extraordinary 

 little creature still proved most troublesome. We 

 carried him as quickly as we could to the cage, which 

 had been repaired, and there once more locked him in. 

 I never saw so furious a beast in my life as he was ; 

 he darted at every one who came near, bit the bamboos 

 of the house, glared at us with venomous and sullen 

 eyes, and in every motion showed a temper thoroughly 

 wicked and malicious ; and as there was no change in 

 this for two days thereafter, but continual moroseness, 

 I tried what starvation would do towards breaking his 

 spirit. It also began to be troublesome to procure his 

 food from the woods, and I wanted him to become 

 accustomed to civilized food, which was placed before 

 him. But he would touch nothing of the land; and 



