Those who have shot under such circumstances will readily understand that everything depends upon “luck;” one man may beat the forest assiduously and vainly for five or six weeks; another will be successful on the first day.  Thus whilst I, without any fault of my own, utterly failed in shooting a gorilla, although I saw him and heard him, and came upon his trail, and found his mortal spoils, another traveller had hardly landed in the Gaboon before he was so fortunate as to bring down a fine anthropoid.

However, as man cannot command success, I was obliged to content myself with doing all in my power to deserve it.  I offered five dollars, equalling the same number of sovereigns in England, to every huntsman for every fair shot, and ten dollars for each live ape.  I implicitly obeyed all words of command, and my factotum Selim Agha was indefatigable in his zeal.  Indeed “luck” was dead against us during the whole of my stay in Gorilla-land.  We ran a fair risk of drowning in the first day’s voyage; on the next march we were knocked down by lightning, and on the last trip I had a narrow escape from the fall of a giant branch that grazed my hammock.

My first “bush” evening was spent in palm-wine, rum, and wassail; one must begin by humouring Africans, under pain of being considered a churl; but the inevitable result is, that next day they will by some pretext or other shirk work to enjoy the headache.  That old villain, “Young Prince,” becoming very fou, hospitably offered me his daughter-in-law Azizeh, Forteune’s second wife; and he was vigorously supported by the Nimrod himself, who had drawn a horizontal line of white chalk above the eyebrows, a defence against the Ibambo, those bad ghosts that cause fevers and sickness.  Forteune then hinted that perhaps I might prefer his daughter—­“he be piccanniny; he be all same woman.”  Marchandise offerte a le pied coupe, both offers were declined with, Merci, non!  Sporting parties are often made up by the Messieurs du Plateau, I had been told at the Comptoir; but such are the fascinations of les petites, that few ever progress beyond the first village.  There was, consequently, wonder in the land as to what manner of utangani this one might be.

It is only fair to own that the ladies endured with great philosophy the spretae injuria formae, and made no difference in their behaviour on account of their charms being unappreciated.  Azizeh was a stout and sturdy personage of twenty-five, with thick wrists and ankles, a very dark skin, and a face rendered pleasing by good humour.  And Azizeh was childless, a sad reproach in these lands, where progeny forms a man’s wealth and a woman’s honour.