The Eastern Congo 



gave me a good " fvill view " of another of these giants. 

 This was a second male and his black form made a splendid 

 picture against the lighter foliage as he stopped to gaze 

 curiously at me with his old and furrowed face. 



However as I had shot the one, I let him pass on to rejoin 

 the rest of the troop which had now calmed down and were 

 moving off into the undergrowth — going forward myself 

 to examine my prize which lay face down in the grass. On 

 turning him over I was truly astonished at his herculean 

 proportions. His immense arms and hands were especially 

 striking and of such enormous strength that they could doubt- 

 less tear even a Hackensmidt or a Sandow limb from limb 

 in a few minutes. These abnormally long arms give this 

 splendid ape a misshapen appearance when walking (or 

 ambling is a better description), the legs being very short in 

 comparison. Living as they do in the mist-covered moun- 

 tains at a high elevation, and seldom descending to below 

 an altitude of seven thousand feet, these animals carry a 

 thick and long coat of hair, with the exception of the chest 

 which is bare grey skin. In colour, the hair on the arms and 

 shoulders is black, the lower part of the back of the old males 

 having across it a broad band of grey, the lower parts of the 

 body as well as the head becoming greyish brown when fully 

 adult. 



The most interesting feature about this specimen, however, 

 and one that has not been remarked before in others, was the 

 elongated crown or crest of thickened skin surmounting the 

 head, which has since been described as a growth similar 

 to the warty face protuberances of the orang-utan and a 

 mark of the completely adult male. This crown was deeply 

 cut in two or three places as if by the teeth of other males 



86 



