about, and a huge hare’s form of leaves lay some five yards from the tree where Forteune declared that Mistress and Master Gorilla had passed the night, Paterfamilias keeping watch below.  A little beyond we were shown a spot where two males had been fighting a duel, or where a couple had been indulging in dalliance sweet; the prints were 8 inches long and 6 across the huge round toes; whilst the hinder hand appeared almost bifurcate, the thumb forming nearly a half.  This is explained in the “Gorilla Book” (chap, xx.):  “Only the ball of the foot, and that thumb which answers to our great toe, seem to touch the ground.”

Presently we came upon the five bushmen who had been appointed to meet us.  They were a queer-looking lot, with wild, unsteady eyes, receding brows, horizontal noses, and projecting muzzles; the cranium and the features seemed disposed nearly at a right angle, giving them a peculiar baboon-like semblance.  Each had his water-gourd and his flint-gun, the lock protected by a cover of monkey’s skin or wild cow’s hide, whilst gibecieres and ammunition-bags of grass-cloth hung from their shoulders.  There were also two boys with native axes, small iron triangles, whose points passed through knob-sticks; these were to fell the trees in which our game might take refuge, and possibly they might have done so in a week.  A few minutes with this party convinced me that I was wilfully wasting time; they would not separate, and they talked so loud that game would be startled a mile off.  I proposed that they should station me in a likely place, form a circle, and drive up what was in it—­they were far above acting beaters after that fashion.  So we dismissed them and dispersed about the bush.  My factotum shot a fine Mboko (Siurus eborivorus), 2 ft. 2 in. total length:  the people declare that this squirrel gnaws ivory, whence its name.  I had heard of it in East and Central Africa, but the tale appeared fabulous:  here it is very common, half a dozen will be seen during the day; it has great vitality, and it will escape after severe wounds.  The bushmen also brought a Shoke (Colubus Satanas), a small black monkey, remarkably large limbed:  the little unfortunate was timid, but not vicious; it worried itself to death on the next day.  They also showed me the head of the Njiwo antelope, which M. du Chaillu (chap, xii.) describes as “a singular animal of the size of a donkey, with shorter legs, no horns, and black, with a yellow spot on the back."[FN#17]

In the afternoon Selim went to fetch my arsenical soap from Mbata, where I had left it en Fitiche:  as long as that “bad medicine” was within Hotaloya’s “ben,” no one would dare to meddle with my goods.  Forteune walked in very tired about sunset.  He had now added streaks of red to the white chalk upon his face, arms, and breast, for he suspected, we were assured, witchcraft.  I told him to get ready for a march on the morrow to the Shekyani country, lying south-east, but he begged so hard, and he seemed so assured of showing sport, that the design was deferred, and again “perdidi diem.”