OTHELLO AND OTHER GORILLAS 247 



part of the coast, but I have never found any reliable 

 man who claims to have seen an equal number. I 

 know men there who have lived in that part for 

 years, who frequently hunt in the forest for days at 

 a time, and yet never saw a live gorilla. I met one 

 man on my last voyage who has lived on the edge 

 of the gorilla country forty-nine years, makes fre- 

 quent journeys through the bush and along the water- 

 courses in the interest of trade, and this man told me 

 himself that in all that time he had never seen a 

 wild gorilla. I would cite Mr. James A. Deemin as 

 an expert woodsman, a cool, daring hunter, and I 

 have enjoyed several hunts with him. He has 

 travelled, traded, and hunted through the gorilla 

 country for more than thirteen years, and has told 

 me that with one exception he had never seen but 

 one wild gorilla. This was a young one, and the 

 exception alluded to was that he one time saw a 

 school of them at a distance. On this occasion he 

 was in a canoe and under the cover of the bushes 

 along the side of a river until he came near them 

 unobserved. Another man, whose name I will take 

 the liberty of giving, is Mr. J. H. Drake, of Liver- 

 pool. Mr. Drake has never been suspected by those 

 who know him of lacking courage in the hunt or 

 being given to romance, and yet in many years on 

 the coast he never saw but one school of these apes, 

 and that was the same one that Mr. Deemin saw 

 when they were travelling together. I could cite 

 many others to show that it is a rare thing for the 

 most expert woodsman ever to see one of these 



