268 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



of sun ! the next moment, perhaps, to find ourselves rushing 

 out to snatch the precious skin from a sudden downpour of 

 rain. The drying, however, went on better than we had 

 expected, and on the third day we were able to leave for 

 Angu. 



At a village we stayed at on our way, I bought from the 

 chief another skin which, although it was incomplete, cost 

 me a great deal of cloth, for the striped part is much prized 

 by the natives, who, besides making bandoliers of it, use it 

 for covering their chairs. Being the rarest and most diffi- 

 cult skin to obtain and attractive by reason of its peculiar 

 markings, the native regards it as an emblem of rank. I 

 remember how, when on our way to Niangara, an old chief 

 followed our boats for two days, begging me to sell him a 

 small strip of my okapi skin, and offering for it no less than 

 twenty fowls which he had with him in his canoe. 



Although Gosling had failed to catch an okapi, he had 

 during his time in the forest obtained a goodly number of 

 small mammals, including a beautiful white-bellied mouse 

 which proved to be a new genus and was named after him, 

 Colomys goslingi. He also became possessed of a baby 

 chimpanzee which he christened " Mary." The tiny thing, 

 which was only three days old, had broken its left arm in 

 falling from a tree, and Gosling mended it most successfully. 

 As she lay on her back in a small basket she looked 

 exactly like a baby in a cradle. After a formal introduction 

 she soon became friends with my " Mistress Anne " who 

 was the elder by six months. 



I joined Gosling at Angu on February 27, the day on 

 which we had sailed from England two years before. 



