I need not further describe our interview, but it ended in a most satisfactory manner, the Bakeles promising to be our friends, and to help us should we require their aid. Having concluded our visit, we took our leave, and commenced our return homewards. As we made our way through the forest we saw vast numbers of apes playing about the trees, and kept a bright look-out on either side lest we should come suddenly upon a lion or leopard--an animal still more to be dreaded, on account of the distance it can spring. We trusted to the guidance of Chickango, for alone I doubt whether we should have been able to find our way. As we were moving along, suddenly, from among the leaves of a palm, I caught sight of an odd-looking face peering out at us, and apparently examining us with much curiosity. The nose was white, and a thick fringe of white hair surrounded the cheeks. The face was black, and the body was of a dark colour, stunted hair covering the top of the head. I could not help bursting out into a fit of laughter at the odd look of the creature, for it reminded me of an old woman. It was unlike any ape I had before seen. Hearing the noise, it turned up its eyes with a look of astonishment, and then springing to the nearest branch, ran off, twirling its long tail, into the depths of the forest. As we agreed not to kill any animal uselessly, we let it go without firing a shot; for we were too far off from home to carry it with us. It would have been useless to collect objects of natural history, except very small ones, as we could not have conveyed them with us on the long journey we expected soon to make. We were slowly making our way through the forest, keeping our guns ready to fire at a moment's notice, when, in the thick shade of some closely growing trees, we caught sight of another huge ape, with a young one by its side. At the first glance I fancied it was a gorilla, but the second showed me that it was a differently formed animal, and not nearly so large as that monster of the woods. The mother and infant were gambolling together; the young one tumbling head over heels, then leaping on its mother's shoulders, then rolling about the ground, while she turned it over and over, apparently to the little creature's great delight. We all stopped, and concealing ourselves behind some thick brushwood, watched the creatures. "There you see a very curious animal," said Senhor Silva to me. "That is what you call in Europe a chimpanzee."