378 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



also well made, lithe, and comely to behold, but the soko, if 

 large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil. He 

 takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appear- 

 ance. His light-yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and 

 faint apology of a beard ; the forehead, villainously low, with 

 high ears, is well in the back-ground of the great dog-mouth ; 

 the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by 

 their large development. The hands, or rather the fingers, are 

 like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow, and 

 the eagerness with which the Manvuemas devour it leaves the 



it 



impression that eating sokos was the first stage by which they 

 arrived at being cannibals ; they say the flesh is delicious. The 

 soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, success- 

 fully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping 

 children and running up trees with them : he seems to be amused 

 by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down 

 when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and, as he lifts that, drops 

 the child : the young soko in such a case would cling closely to 

 the arm-pit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from 

 a tree, and naked, when a soko suddenly appeared and caught 

 him, then let him go. Another man was hunting, and missed in 

 his attempt to stab a soko : it seized the spear and broke it, then 

 grappled with the man, who called to his companions, ' Soko has 

 caught me :' the soko bit off the ends of his fingers and escaped 

 unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarre. 



" The soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one 

 can stalk him in front without being seen ; hence, when shot it is 

 always in the back ; when surrounded by men and nets, he is 

 generally speared in the back, too ; otherwise he is not a very 

 formidable beast ; he is nothing, as compared in power of darn- 

 aging his assailant, to a leopard or lion, but is more like a man 

 unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, 

 which are long and formidable. Numbers of them come down 

 in the forest within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be 

 unknown but for giving tongue like fox-hounds : this is their 

 nearest approach to speech. A man hoeing was stalked by a 



