512 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



lived in many different countries, the last being the United 

 States, from whence he sailed for Africa in October, 1855= Du 

 Chaillu was also a naturalist and sportsman, for in the preface to 

 his" Adventures in Equatorial Africa," he says : 



' A brief summary of the results of my four years' travel will 

 perhaps interest the reader. I traveled always on foot, and 

 unaccompanied by other white men about 8,000 miles. I shot, 

 stuffed, and brought home over 2,000 birds, of which more than 

 60 are new species, and I killed upward of 1,000 quadrupeds, of 

 which 200 were stuffed and brought home, with more than 80 

 skeletons. Not less than 20 of these quadrupeds are species 

 hitherto unknown to science. I suffered fifty attacks of the 

 African fever, taking, to cure myself, over fourteen ounces of 

 quinine. Of famine, long-continued exposures to the heavy 

 tropical rains, and attacks of ferocious ants and venomous flies, 

 it is not worth while to speak." 



IN THE HAUNTS OF GORILLAS AND SERPENTS. 



Du CHAILLU had traveled several months in the interior, 

 accompanied by an armed escort of natives and women carriers, 

 before he met with any important adventure, as the time had 

 been devoted chiefly to considering the people he met and trying 

 to instil in them the principles of Christianity. Along the 

 Ntambounay river and Sierre del Crystal mountains, however, his 

 attention became directed to other things more immediately con- 

 cerning his own well-being. The region was very thinly popu- 

 lated and the difficulties of procuring food became so great that 

 his entire party was seriously threatened with starvation. While 

 sitting under a tree, tired and intensely hungry, he began to 

 reflect upon his miserable condition ; his gun lay beside him, his 

 only dependence for food, and this seemed now as useless as a 

 walking-stick. He had not long continued in this reverie when, 

 looking up, merely by chance, he was horrified by seeing an 

 enormous serpent swinging from a branch immediately over hi.s 

 head, and, slowly slipping its great body so as to extend its length, 

 w.is preparing to seize him. Quick as a flash he grasped his gun 

 and shot it through the head. An examination of the snake 



