“Chaillee,” said he, “my father belonged to a clan which lived in the Ashankolo Mountains, and in his younger days had crossed a large river, called the Ngouyai. He was the chief of a village, and a great warrior. In the country where we lived there was nothing but fighting and fighting; village was against village, and often brother against brother; not a day passed that some one was not killed. You know our mode of warfare; we kill any one, old man, woman, or babe—we have no mercy. One night my father’s village was attacked. We fought and fought, and at last repulsed the enemy, who fled in dismay. My father was killed, two sisters of mine were killed, also several other people of the village. Then we moved toward the banks of the Ovenga; we soon came down the stream, and now I have grown a man, and live where my village is. I only wish you would live all the time among us. We should take such care of you.” [Sidenote: _A FEMALE GORILLA._] After fixing our fires we went to sleep, and early the next morning we made for our camp. We had hardly gone two miles into the woods, when lo! I heard a kind of chuckle which told me that a gorilla was not far off. The sound came from a densely-wooded and dark ravine, and from the very bottom of it. When we reached the place we found it to be one of those ugly bogs where you go knee deep into the mud, walking on the roots of trees, and sometimes get stuck fast in this position. The gorilla was right in the midst of the bog; it was a female, and at every moment we expected to see a large male standing before us, roaring like a demon, and asking us what we came to do in this dark recess of the forest, where it had made its abode with his wife, and perhaps his baby gorilla. How carefully we looked at our guns! how watchful our eyes were! We were not to be easily surprised. The bog was like one of the worst kind we have in America in the overflowed and woody land of the Western country; only here we have creepers, thorny bushes, and hanging lianas, and grass that cuts like a razor. We entered the swamp, and went nearer and nearer the sound we had heard first, and came to a dry spot, when lo! we spied a female gorilla and her young baby. The baby was very small, a very dear little baby it was to its mother, for she appeared with her extremely black face, to look at it with great fondness. I was disarmed; I could not possibly fire. I seemed spell-bound, and could not raise my gun to fire. Yes, there was something too human in that female and her offspring; it hung by her breast, but, unlike our babies, who have to be entirely supported, its little hands clutched its mother’s shoulders and helped it to support itself. The little fellow gave a shrill and plaintive cry, and crawled from its mother’s arms to her breast to be fed, and the mother lowered her head and looked at her offspring, and with his little fingers he pressed and pressed her breast, so that the milk could come more freely.