1863.] AFRICAN ELEPHANT, AND GORILLA. 171 



them ; and then he would make fetish that they should not be 

 angry. 



Now, if I had read this in a book, I should have disbelieved it. 

 The Elephant, which is so intelligent, to be decoyed into so palpable 

 a trap ! the Elephant, which is so sensitive of the approach of man, 

 to remain for days and days surrounded by the hubbub of a negroes' 

 camp ! what can appear more absurd ? 



But as the Elephant was there before my eyes, I was under the 

 painful necessity of believing a thing which I did not understand, 

 which of course I found very humiliating. A little while afterwards 

 a man came round singing and dabbing the fence with a piece of rag 

 soaked in a dark brown liquid. The Fans then told me that they made 

 fetish every day, and that this fetish would be spoilt if a white man 

 was present. I took this delicate hint and went away. Now I think 

 that I can offer an explanation of this, which, if not perfectly satis- 

 factory, is not unreasonable. The doctors, or fetish-men, as we call 

 them, of the negroes have certainly an intimate knowledge of herbs. 

 Possibly, by observing the habits of Elephants, they have found out 

 some herb with which they can entice them where they please. This 

 would be the fetish which made them come in. They would probably 

 use another herb, which the Elephants disliked, to prevent them going 

 out ; and perhaps this was the dark brown liquid which they sprinkled 

 on the fence. Finally, they might scatter stupifying herbs among 

 their food ; and this would be the fetish which prevented them from 

 being angry whilst they were being killed. This surmise was after- 

 wards partly indorsed, when I was in Angola, by a runaway slave 

 from the unvisited kingdom of Matiamvo, who told me that they 

 always poisoned the Elephants there before attempting to kill them. 

 Before the Elephants in question were killed, all the undergrowth 

 was cut down, part of which I saw had already been done ; and they 

 were killed with cross-bows, spears, and trade-guns. 



3. The Gorilla Ape (^Troglodytes gorilla). 



I will now speak of that Troglodytes prodigiosus, the Gorilla. 



In the first place, the name itself is a blunder. The Gorillce of 

 Hanno were found, it is supposed, on Sherbro Island ; they scaled 

 rocks, and they defended themselves with stones. These could neither 

 have been Gorillas nor Chimpanzees, but a species of Cynocephalus, or 

 kind of Baboon, commonly called the Dog-faced Monkey. These ani- 

 mals, which I have seen often enough in Senegambia, go in troops, 

 which Gorillas do not, and actually defend themselves with stones, — 

 a fact which I assert not only on the evidence of natives, but on the 

 evidence of white men who have kept them in a state of captivity. 

 They are also very ferocious, and will always defend themselves when 

 attacked either by man or by beast. 



I spent five months in the Gorilla country, and did not leave that 

 part of Africa till I had completely satisfied myself respectuig the 

 habits of this animal. The evidence which I now lay before you is 

 composed of statements made to me by men who had killed Gorillas. 

 It is collected from three distinct parts of Equatorial Africa, viz. 



