IN THE LAND OF GORILLAS AND PYGMIES 
3 ^ 
party, he erected himself and looked us boldly in the face. He stood 
about a dozen yards from us, and was a sight I think I shall never 
forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved four inches shorter), with 
immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms, with fiercely- 
glaring large deep gray eyes, and a hellish expression of face, which 
seemed to me like some nightmare vision: thus stood before us this 
king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us. He stood there, 
and beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense 
bass-drum, which is their mode of offering defiance; meantime giving 
vent to roar after roar. The roar of the gorilla is the most singular 
and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins with a sharp 
bark, like that of an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll, which 
literally and closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along the 
sky, for which I have sometimes been tempted to take it where I did 
not see the animal. So deep is it that it seems to proceed less from the 
mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast paunch.” I11 
another place Du Chaillu says that he believes he has heard this roar 
at a distance of three miles. “His eyes began to, flash fiercer fire as we 
stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of short hair which 
stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up and down, while his 
powerful fangs were shown as he again sent forth a thunderous roar. 
And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream 
creature—a being of that hideous order, half-man half beast, which 
we find pictured by old artists in some representations of the infernal 
regions. He advanced a few steps—then stopped to utter that hide¬ 
ous roar again—advanced again, and finally stopped when at a dis¬ 
tance of about six yards from us. And here, just as he began another 
of his roars, beating his breast in rage, we fired, and killed him. With 
a groan which had something terribly human in it, and yet was full 
of brutishness, he fell forward on his face. The body shook convul¬ 
sively for a few minutes, the limbs moved about in a struggling way, 
and then all was quiet—death had’ done its work, and I had leisure to 
examine the huge body. It proved to be five feet eight inches high, 
and the muscular development of the arms and breast showed what 
immense strength it had possessed.” 
The people of this country, the Fans, were fortunately very 
