He was not afraid of us. He stood there, and beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense bass drum, which is their mode of offering defiance; meantime giving vent to roar after roar. This roar was the most singular and awful noise I had ever heard in these African forests. It began with a sharp _bark_, like that of an angry dog; then glided into a deep bass _roll_ which literally and closely resembled the roll of distant thunder along the sky. I have heard the lion roar, but greater, deeper, and more fearful is the roar of the gorilla. So deep is it that it seems to proceed less from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast paunch of the beast. The earth was literally shaking under my feet as he roared, and for a while I knew not where I was. Was it an apparition from the infernal regions? Was I asleep or not? I was soon reminded that it was not a dream. I said quietly to myself—“Du Chaillu, if you do not kill this gorilla, as sure as you are born he will kill you.” His eyes began to flash fierce fire as we stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up and down and was perfectly frightful to look at. His powerful fangs, or enormous canines, were shown as he again sent forth a thunderous roar: the red inside of his mouth contrasted singularly with his intensely black face. And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature—a being of that hideous order, half man, half beast, which we find pictured by old artists in some representations of the infernal regions; but nothing they ever painted could approach this horrid monster in ugliness. He advanced a few steps in a waddling way, for his short legs seemed incapable of supporting his huge body; then stopped to utter that hideous roar again—advanced again, and finally stopped when at a distance of five or six yards from us. And then—as he extended his arms as though ready to clutch us, and just as he began another of his frightful roars, beating his breast with rage—what a huge hand he had!—I fired, and killed him. [Illustration: FIERCE ATTACK OF A GORILLA.] [Sidenote: _THE GORILLA IS SHOT._] With a groan that had something terribly human in it, and yet was full of brutishness, he fell forward on his face like a man when he is struck by a bullet in the chest. He shook convulsively for a few minutes, his limbs moved about in a struggling way, the tremor of the muscles ceased, and then all was quiet—death had done its work. The monster was hardly dead when I suddenly began to tremble all over, my lower jaw met my upper one in a way I did not like at all, and my men looked at me with their mouths wide open in perfect amazement. They could hardly believe their eyes, but having recovered themselves, they asked me what was the matter. I answered that I did not know, and that I had asked myself the same question.