Okapi Hunting 



The fact that the rarest insects and the rarest animals 

 may usually be found together, induced me to take a north- 

 easterly direction from Mbeni, up on to the Congo-Nile water- 

 shed, where the Ibima and Itoa Rivers have their source and 

 where that shiest of all animals the okapi [Ocapia johnstonii) 

 is to be found, a skin of which I had hopes of adding to my 

 collection. 



After three days the winding forest track led us up to 

 the village of a Wanandi chief called Moera, a cunning old 

 rascal, who in his younger days has been a blood-thirsty 

 villain ; but to-day his village has become the centre from 

 which many a hunt for the okapi has been set afoot by big 

 game sportsmen, adventurers, and museum collectors from 

 all over the world, in fact ever since the existence of the 

 animal was first discovered in this part of the forest by 

 Sir Harry Johnston. Old Moera has a thin veneer of civiliza- 

 tion due to his contact with white men, but this is scarcely 

 skin deep and, as Pcre Lens afterwards explained, what he 

 and his rival cannibal chiefs had done, and in some cases 

 still did, would not bear print. Our friend the Catholic 

 Father knew more than he would tell, for later when he 

 stayed with us in our camp he persistently refused to 

 shake hands with Moera, counting him as quite beyond 

 the pale of friendship. To see the chief's efforts to in- 

 duce the Father to shake hands with him were ludicrous ; 

 his importunities were, however, quite unavailing on this 

 occasion. 



As Moera's village stands right on the watershed and the 

 forest has been cut away round about, glimpses of the Congo 

 slope on the one side, and the deep Semliki valley on the 

 other, can be obtained. We made our camp on the edge 



147 



