Part 18 (1/2)
After he had given that laugh, which ended in a sarcastic smile, he looked me in the face and said, ”You can not do it. No one has ever been there; there is a mighty spirit living in those woods which prevents people from pa.s.sing. Besides, there is nothing to eat; there are no wild beasts, no antelope, no wild boar. At the foot of the mountain there is a tremendous waterfall, which drowns the roar of the gorilla.”
”I must go,” said I. So I talked to the As.h.i.+ras, and finally I managed, by making presents and promising more on my return, to get guides enough among the As.h.i.+ra freemen to lead me through the impenetrable forests which lay between the prairie and the mountain top.
Then we prepared ourselves for the journey. I had two fine axes, which I filed and ground on soft stone in order to make them very sharp; also several _manchettes_, or cutla.s.ses, to help us to cut our way through the jungle. I had several boxes of matches to light our fires, besides fire-steel and flints, in case our matches should get wet. I also took several wax candles, as it is much more easy to light the fires with them. Likewise I took one heavy blanket, for I knew not what kind of weather we should have on the mountains; as for my men, the fires would be their blankets.
The heavy portion of our luggage was several hundred bullets, about fifty pounds of shot with which to kill Guinea-fowls and other birds, and about ten pounds of powder.
For food we had smoke-dried plantains, which had been cooked first, and then dried on an orala by smoking them. We had also smoked ca.s.sada. This kind of food, prepared in this way, would keep much longer and be much lighter, so each man could carry a much greater quant.i.ty of it. We wanted plenty of food. It was the first time I had seen plantain prepared in that way.
We started in the midst of the cheers of the As.h.i.+ra people, and, as we disappeared down the hill, I saw Olenda looking after us with his body half bent, and for all the world like some being of another planet.
We took a northerly direction till the afternoon, when we left the prairie, and entered at once into as fine a piece of bog land as any one could wish to be in. It was awful traveling; the ground was soft, and every step we made took us almost knee-deep into it. Now and then I had to look at my compa.s.s to see that we were going in the right direction, for there was no path whatever; but the As.h.i.+ra said we would find one after pa.s.sing the marshes; that it was a hunting-path, and that there we would meet game. The fellows were already thinking of meat.
When night came on we stopped on a hill surrounded by bog; we were so tired that we had not the strength to build our shelters; besides, there were no large leaves to be seen. We lighted tremendous fires, but toward midnight I was awakened by the sound of distant thunder, which gradually grew louder and louder; then flashes of lightning glared through the forest, and then terrific claps of thunder rolled along the sky. The rain began to pour down with a fury that flooded the country in a short time; our beds of leaves were saturated, compelling us to get up. The rain kept pouring down with increasing violence. We had not built our fires sufficiently high, although we had used huge pieces of wood that ought to have been high enough from the ground to prevent the rain from putting them out. But they were getting dimmer and dimmer, and at last we were left in complete darkness. It was pitch dark, and we could not even see each other except when a flash of lightning would brighten the forest.
We were in a pretty fix. I began to regret that we had not been more careful. Leopards and other wild beasts might be prowling about, and get hold of some of us. What would the As.h.i.+ras say if one of their number should be carried away by a wild beast? They would call me a bad spirit.
We could not even talk, for the thunder was too loud, and drowned our voices; besides, the rain made a great noise as it fell in torrents upon the trees, and from their leaves to the ground. We were surrounded by tall trees, and I was afraid that some of them might be struck by the lightning, and their heavy broken limbs fall in the midst of us.
In fact, it was as uncomfortable a night as any one could wish to spend in the jungle, for we knew not what would happen next. Toward four o'clock in the morning the rain ceased, but then I was wet to the bones; of course, my As.h.i.+ras would soon dry. We lighted our fires once more, having split in two some pieces of half-rotten logs which lay near by, and had perhaps lain there for more than a hundred years, the heart being soft and dry. This is the kind of wood we use to light our fires with when there has been a heavy rain, and the wood that has fallen from the trees is wet outside. In these immense forests, which have been resting in their gloomy solitude for ages, the growths of trees succeed one after the other. I have often wondered how Africa looked before it was covered with this dense vegetation, and what kind of animals it had, for the fauna of that country must have changed like ours. I remembered that once the immense mastodon roamed through America. With these thoughts I went to sleep in clothes wet to the skin. I took a large dose of quinine, however, in order to prevent a chill, which probably might have ensued from such a severe night.
The next morning I dried my wet clothes, and once more we went bravely into the great jungle, still taking by my compa.s.s a northerly direction through the dense and th.o.r.n.y forest. The hunting-path was almost a myth, for only now and then would we get a glimpse of it; but my As.h.i.+ra men seemed to know almost every large tree we pa.s.sed. We advanced slowly, our manchettes helping to cut the undergrowth. The third day I lost my only s.h.i.+rt--at least it would not hold together; and one of the legs of my pantaloons was torn off once, and I had to mend it with the fibre of the bark of trees. I lost, besides, many patches of skin, and the sharp thorns tore my flesh. Snakes we would see now and then.
We had hardly entered the jungle that first morning before I heard the roar of the gorilla. This at once revived my drooping spirits, as also those of my men, who immediately began to see looming up before them large pieces of gorilla meat broiled or roasted on charcoal.
A dead silence among ourselves followed the roar of the big monster.
Each As.h.i.+ra, as if by instinct, came close to me for protection. We had not far to go. I went off in an easterly direction with friend Gambo, leaving all the As.h.i.+ras together in fear of the gorilla. We had barely gone a quarter of a mile in the direction from whence the roar proceeded when we heard what was now a much louder roar, this time quite near. We stood quite still, for fear of alarming the beast, which was evidently approaching us unawares. At last we could see the bushes bend toward us.
Gambo and I looked at each other, and inspected our guns; they were all right. A feeling of safety crept over us of course, for a good gun, with a steady aim, is a friend in need, and this we thought each of us possessed.
The fear of alarming the gorilla, however, proved needless. He had come where he had heard a noise, and when he saw us he at once struck the intervening bushes, rose to an erect position, made a few steps in a waddling sort of way, stopped, and seated himself; then beating his vast breast, which resounded like an old drum, he advanced straight upon us.
His dark gray sunken eyes flashed with rage; his features worked convulsively; his intensely black face looked horrid. His huge canines, powerful sinewy hands, and immense arms told us that we must not expect mercy from the monster. At every few paces he stopped, and, opening his cavernous mouth, gave vent to his thunderous roars, which the forest gave back with multiplied echoes until it was full of the din.
He was evidently not a bit alarmed, but quite ready for a fight. We stood perfectly still. He advanced till he stood beating his breast within about six yards of us, when I thought it time to put an end to the scene. My shot hit him in the breast, and he fell forward on his face, dead. The gorilla seems to die easy if shot in the right place.
This one proved to be a middle-aged male, and a very fine specimen, but it was utterly impossible to preserve his skin in that great jungle.
In a short time all the As.h.i.+ra joined us, and soon after the gorilla was cut to pieces, the hands and feet being thrown away, and the brain being religiously preserved for fetiches.
There was plenty in the camp, for during the day I killed a nice little ncheri (gazelle), when I also had a feast.
We were now fairly in the midst of high hills, sometimes going down, then going up; but, to save me, I could not tell exactly where we were going. Occasionally we followed the tracks that elephants had made, but finally lost them. The elephants had evidently often changed their minds, and retraced their steps from whence they came. I could not tell exactly where the mountains of the Nkonmou-Nabouali were. The compa.s.s became of no use, for we never followed two minutes the same direction.
At the rate we should have had to go through the forest, taking our course by the compa.s.s, we should have required perhaps a month or more, as we would have had to go on without making use of the clearings that we found now and then, or the tracks made by the wild beasts, or the little streams that came down from the hills. In fact, we would have had to make a road. The woods were very dense, game was scarce, and at last we had but one day's provisions left. The berries were not plentiful--indeed, for two or three days we did not eat to our heart's content for fear of running through our provisions too fast.
I had with me only the suit of clothes I wore and a spare pair of pantaloons, for I was getting very poor, and my stock of garments left at Olenda was small--indeed, it was so small that it was next to nothing. My poor rags could hardly be kept together. At times we had to pa.s.s through dense and very th.o.r.n.y jungles, where briers were as thick as gra.s.s on a prairie, and the holes in my clothes left so many bare spots that at every advance my scratched body bore witness of the hard time we had had, and of the difficulties we should encounter if I persisted in advancing into these mountains where there were no paths.
It came into my head that the As.h.i.+ras did not want to go; so I called our men together, and, after lighting a bright fire, we talked over ”the situation,” and then concluded that we had better return rather than risk certain death by starvation.
We rested that night in the forest, and the next morning I gave the order to return, feeling quite disappointed at my non-success. We set out praying only that we might not starve. We still were in good spirits, and laughed over our misfortune, although hunger began to pinch us hard, and I can a.s.sure you it is not a very pleasant thing. We were looking for berries every where, and the As.h.i.+ras for rat-holes and mice-nests, for mice and rats are great dainties among them; squirrels and monkeys, wild boars and antelopes, Guinea-fowls, parrots, and even serpents, but nothing was to be seen. To make it worse, we lost our way.
We had been careless in not breaking boughs of trees when we followed the elephant's tracks, and we got into the wrong track of other elephants. Once lost in such a forest, the more you try to find your way the more you generally get bewildered. At last I took my compa.s.s, and we directed our steps, with its help, toward the south.