The Eastern Congo 



wit- grass and bamboo leaves, form the favourite food of the 

 gorillas. 



It was on the edge of this hagenia zone that, for the 

 first time in my life, it fell to my lot to find and examine 

 the freshly made sleeping-place of a solitary " old-man " 

 gorilla. As I obtained a very good photograph of this, which 

 will be found reproduced on the opposite page, it is unnecessary 

 to describe it in detail ; suffice it to say that it consisted of 

 a fair-sized hole scooped in the ground, and filled in with 

 leaves and bamboo branches bent down for the purpose. 



Shortly after passing this place we entered the patch 

 of open forest that I have previously described, and finding a 

 suitable camping place near a water-hole, we cleared, with 

 considerable difficulty, a patch free from the thick growth of 

 Alpine foliage. I then put up the two tents I had with me, 

 one for myself, the other as a kitchen and boys' tent, the 

 porters meanwhile selecting a huge overhanging creeper- 

 covered hagenia stem for their quarters, which would afford 

 considerable protection against inclement weather. 



When I left my damp and cold camp the following morning 

 for a still wetter and colder forest, I had little hope of bagging 

 a gorilla, one of the rarest and most interesting animals that 

 may fall to the hunter's rifle, the mere name of which had often 

 hrilled my younger days and around which there still hangs 

 something primeval, like the forests from which they come. 

 Such luck seemed too good to come true, but this time how- 

 ever my luck was in, a recompense for having " stuck it out." 

 " It's dogged as does it," is a good motto ! 



Now, it is perhaps not generally known that gorillas 

 are fond of bending over long bamboos to make a kind of 

 low platform upon which to sun themselves and from which 



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