Okapi Hunting 



Wanandi and other tribesmen in the banana plantations. 

 These little men, who by the way are greatly respected 

 by the dominant negroes for their power of retaliation 

 when occasion arises, are indispensable when it comes 

 to okapi hunting, and the first thing to be done is to 

 sohcit their help. As they are inordinately fond of salt 

 and as they see . very httle of this commodity, their aid is 

 easily obtained by the offer of a few pounds of the coarse 

 article. 



In answer to Moera's summons, the following day brought 

 the chief of the Wambute* and six other Pygmies, some of 

 them with the face whitened with kaolin — forming a very 

 effective mask — and others with only half of it painted, as is 

 their custom when outside the confines of their forest home. 

 Both my wife and myself looked at these sturdy little men 

 with undisguised interest. What need to look further for 

 the Missing Link when he stood before us ! Short legs, long 

 arms, heavy torso ; short neck, rounded head, deep set, 

 penetrating, see-in-the-dark kind of eyes ; square long lips, 

 protruding jaw. The ape was all there, up to the hair, which 

 was discernible in some cases over the entire body of these 

 dwarfs. 



Later on I went to take cinematograph films of the 

 Wambute, and made a surprise visit to one of their largest 

 camps, an accoimt of which I have given towards the end 

 of this chapter. The work in hand at this meeting, however, 

 was confined to raising their enthusiasm over the hunting 

 down of a kwapi (the name, by the way, by which the animal 



* As I knew that Captain Harrison, twenty or more years ago now, took 

 some of these pygmies back to England with him to be shown at Earl's 

 Court Exhibition, I inquired about them, but was told they were all dead. For 

 many reasons I believe the forest dwarf to be short lived ! 



149 



