CHAPTER XIV 



GORILLAS 



In the order of nature the gorilla occupies the 

 second place below man. His habitat is in the low- 

 lands of West Tropical Africa, and is confined to 

 very narrow limits. The vague line which bounds 

 his realm cannot be defined with absolute precision, 

 but those generally given in books that treat of him 

 are not correct. If he ever occupied any part of 

 the coast north of the equator, he has long since 

 become extinct in that part, but there is nothing to 

 show that he ever did exist there. So far as I have 

 been able to trace the lines that prescribe his native 

 haunts, he appears to be confined to the low, delta 

 country, lying between the Equator and Loango 

 along the coast, and reaching eastward to the 

 interior, an average distance of about one hundred 

 miles. The eastern boundary is very irregular. To 

 be more exact, the extreme limit on the north side 

 would be the Gaboon River to its head-waters, 

 thence southward to the Ogowe River to the mouth 

 of the Nguni River ; up that river twenty or thirty 

 miles, thence a zigzag line along the western base 

 of the dividing lands between the Congo basin and 



