532 WILD ANIMALS. 



the Balengi of the Muni river, from the Shekani and Fans of the 

 Gaboon, and from the Commi, Bakeli, &c., of the Fernand Vaz. But 

 from the last river, where gorillas are most plentiful, I obtained 

 most information. 



" The gorilla is found in those thick and solitary places of the 

 forest where animal Hfe is scarce. His food is strictly vegetable. 

 He moves along the ground on all fours ; sometimes he goes up 

 into the trees to feed on fruit, and at night he sleeps in a large 

 tree. When the female is pregnant the male builds a nest, where 

 she is confined, and which she abandons as soon as her young one 

 is born. 



" The gorilla does not beat its breast like a drum. It utters a 

 kind of short, sharp bark when enraged, and its ordinary cry is of 

 a plaintive nature. 



" With respect to its ferocity, the hunters have a proverb, ' Leave 

 the Ngnia alone, and it will leave you alone.' When it is at bay and 

 wounded, it will attack man, like the stag, the elephant, and other 

 animals naturally timid. But it makes this attack on all fours ; 

 th6 hunters, who are themselves as nimble as apes, often escape 

 from it as men escape from the charge of an elephant. I have 

 seen a man who haid been wounded by a gorilla; his wrist was 

 crippled and the marks of the teeth were visible. He told me 

 that the goriUa seized his wrist and dragged it into his mouth ; it 

 was contented with having done this, and went off. The nearest 

 approach to an erect posture which the gorilla attains to is by 

 supporting itself by holding on to the branches. When I asked the 

 people of Ngumbi whether a man had ever been killed by a gorilla, 

 they said their fathers had spoken of such a thing, but that nothing 

 of the kind had happened within the memory of anybody living. 



"I can make one or two positive assertions from my own 

 experience. Although I never succeeded in seeing a gorilla in its 

 wild state, I can assert that it travels on all fours ; for I have seen 

 the tracks, of its four feet, over and over again. I can assert that 

 it runs away from man, for I have been near enough to hear one 

 running away from me ; and I can assert that the young gorilla is 

 as docile as the young chimpanzee in a state of captivity, for I 

 have seen both of them in a state of captivity." 



Du Chaillu's declaration that the gorilla is untamable has 



