Journeys Through Bookland Volume Vii Part 27

When I returned to Nkongon Mboumba I found there my old friend Akondogo, chief of one of the Commi villages, who had just returned from the Ngobi country, a little further south. To my great surprise and pleasure, he had brought for me a living gorilla, a young one, but the largest I had ever seen captured alive. Like Joe, the young male whose habits in confinement I described in 'Equatorial Africa,' this one showed the most violent and ungovernable disposition. He tried to bite every one who came near him, and was obliged to be secured by a forked stick closely applied to the back of his neck. This mode of imprisoning these animals is a very improper one if the object be to keep them alive and to tame them, but, unfortunately, in this barbarous country, we had not the materials requisite to build a strong cage. The injury caused to this one by the forked stick eventually caused his death. As I had some more hunting to do, I left the animal in charge of Akondogo until he should have an opportunity of sending it to me on the Fernand Vaz.

The natives of all the neighboring country were now so well aware that I wanted live gorillas, and was willing to give a high price for them, that many were stimulated to search with great perseverance; the good effects of this were soon made evident.

One day as I was quietly dining with Captain Holder, of the _Cambria_ (a vessel just arrived from England), one of my men came in with the startling news that three live gorillas had been brought, one of them full grown. I had not long to wait; in they came. First, a very large adult female, bound hand and foot; then her female child, screaming terribly; and lastly, a vigorous young male, also tightly bound. The female had been ingeniously secured by the negroes to a strong stick, the wrists bound to the upper part and the ankles to the lower, so that she could not reach to tear the cords with her teeth. It was dark, and the scene was one so wild and strange that I shall never forget it. The fiendish countenances of the Calibanish trio, one of them distorted by pain, for the mother gorilla was severely wounded, were lit up by the ruddy glare of native torches. The thought struck me, what would I not give to have the group in London for a few days!

[Ill.u.s.tration: GORILLA WITH HER YOUNG]

The young male I secured by a chain which I had in readiness, and gave him henceforth the name of Tom. We untied his hands and feet; to show his grat.i.tude for this act of kindness he immediately made a rush at me, screaming with all his might; happily the chain was made fast, and I took care afterwards to keep out of his way. The old mother gorilla was in an unfortunate plight. She had an arm broken and a wound in the chest, besides being dreadfully beaten on the head. She groaned and roared many times during the night, probably from pain.

I noticed next day, and on many occasions, that the vigorous young male whenever he made a rush at any one and missed his aim, immediately ran back. This corresponds with what is known of the habits of the large males in their native woods; when attacked they make a furious rush at their enemy, break an arm or tear his bowels open, and then beat a retreat, leaving their victim to shift for himself.

The wounded female died in the course of the next day; her moanings were more frequent in the morning, and they gradually became weaker as her life ebbed out. Her death was like that of a human being, and afflicted me more than I could have thought possible. Her child clung to her to the last, and tried to obtain milk from her breast after she was dead. I photographed them both when the young one was resting in its dead mother's lap. I kept the young one alive for three days after its mother's death. It moaned at night most piteously. I fed it on goat's milk, for it was too young to eat berries. It died the fourth day, having taken an unconquerable dislike to the milk. It had, I think, begun to know me a little. As to the male, I made at least a dozen attempts to photograph the irascible little demon, but all in vain. The pointing of the camera towards him threw him into a perfect rage, and I was almost provoked to give him a sound thrashing. The day after, however, I succeeded with him, taking two views, not very perfect, but sufficient for my object.

I must now relate how these three animals were caught, premising that the capture of the female was the first instance of an adult gorilla being taken alive. The place where they were found was on the left bank of the Fernand Vaz, about thirty miles above my village. At this part a narrow promontory projects into the river. It was the place where I had intended to take the distinguished traveler, Captain Burton, to show him a live gorilla, if he had paid me a visit, as I had expected, for I had written to invite him whilst he was on a tour from his consulate at Fernando Po to several points on the West African coast.

A woman, belonging to a neighboring village, had told her people that she had seen two squads of female gorillas, some of them accompanied by their young ones, in her plantain field. The men resolved to go in chase of them, so they armed themselves with guns, axes, and spears, and sallied forth.

The situation was very favorable for the hunters; they formed a line across the narrow strip of land and pressed forward, driving the animals to the edge of the water. When they came in sight of them, they made all the noise in their power, and thus bewildered the gorillas, who were shot or beaten down in their endeavors to escape. There were eight adult females altogether, but not a single male. The negroes thought the males were in concealment in the adjoining woods, having probably been frightened away by the noise.

This incident led me to modify somewhat the opinions I had expressed, in 'Adventures in Equatorial Africa,' regarding some of the habits of the gorilla. I there said I believed it impossible to capture an adult female alive, but I ought to have added, unless wounded. I have also satisfied myself that the gorilla is more gregarious than I formerly considered it to be; at least it is now clear that, at certain times of the year, it goes in bands more numerous than those I saw in my former journey. Then I never saw more than five together. I have myself seen, on my present expedition, two of these bands of gorillas, numbering eight or ten, and have had authentic accounts from the natives of other similar bands. It is true that, when gorillas become aged, they seem to be more solitary, and to live in pairs, or, as in the case of old males, quite alone. I have been a.s.sured by the negroes that solitary and aged gorillas are sometimes seen almost white; the hair becomes grizzled with age, and I have no doubt that the statement of their becoming occasionally white with extreme old age is quite correct.

The gorilla is of migratory habits at some seasons of the year. He is then not found in the districts usually resorted to by him when the berries, fruits, and nuts are in season.

Besides my other collections I embarked a live gorilla, our little friend Tom, and had full hopes that he would arrive safely and gratify the world of London with a sight of this rare and wonderful ape in the living state; unfortunately, he died on the pa.s.sage. He did very well for a few weeks, I am told, as long as the supply of bananas lasted which I placed on board for his sustenance. The repugnance of the gorilla to cooked food, or any sort of food except the fruits and juicy plants he obtains in his own wilds, will always be a difficulty in the way of bringing him to Europe alive. I had sent him consigned to Messrs.

Baring, who, I am sure, never had any such consignment before. I promised the Captain that he should receive one hundred pounds if he succeeded in taking the animal alive to London.

During the few days Tom was in my possession he remained, like all the others of his species that I had seen, utterly untractable. The food that was offered to him he would come and s.n.a.t.c.h from the hand, and then bolt with it to the length of his tether. If I looked at him he would make a feint of darting at me, and in giving him water I had to push the bowl towards him with a stick, for fear of his biting me. When he was angry I saw him often beat the ground and his legs with his fists, thus showing a similar habit to that of the adult gorillas, which I described as beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s with their fists when confronting an enemy.

Before lying down to rest he used to pack his straw very carefully as a bed to lie on. Tom used to wake me in the night by screaming suddenly, and in the morning I more than once detected him in the attempt to strangle himself with his chain, no doubt through rage at being kept prisoner. He used to twist the chain round and round the post, to which it was attached until it became quite short and then pressed with his feet the lower part of the post until he had nearly done the business.

As I have before related, I took photographs of Tom, and succeeded very well. These photographs I was unwilling to send home, and kept them until I should have completed my whole series of photographs of African subjects. They are now, unfortunately, lost forever; for they were left behind in the bush during my hurried retreat from Ashango-land, as will be related in the sequel.

When the last boat which took on board the Captain and the live animals left the sh.o.r.e for the vessel, I trembled for the safety of the cargo, for the surf was very rough. The negroes, however, could have managed to get her safely through if they had not been too careful. They were nervous at having a white man on board, and did not seize the proper moment to pa.s.s the breakers; their hesitation was very near proving fatal, for a huge billow broke over them and filled the boat. It did not, happily, upset, but they had to return. Captain Berridge thus escaped with a wetting, and the Potamoch.o.e.rus and eagles were half drowned. As to poor Tom, the bath, instead of cooling his courage, made him more violent than ever. He shouted furiously, and as soon as I opened the door of his cage he pounced on the bystanders, clinging to them and screaming. A present of a banana, which he ate voraciously, quieted him down, and the pa.s.sage was again tried in the afternoon with a better result.

THE CLOUD

_By_ PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pa.s.s in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers Lightning, my pilot, sits, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder; It struggles and howls by fits.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead.

As, on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle, alit, one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings; And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch, through which I march, With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pa.s.s through the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air,-- I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and upbuild it again.

BRUTE NEIGHBORS

_By_ HENRY DAVID Th.o.r.eAU

NOTE.--The author of this sketch, Henry David Th.o.r.eau, who lived from 1817 to 1862, was one of the oddest of American men of genius.

He was educated at Harvard University, but he did not care, in the common phrase, to "turn his learning to practical account;" that is, save for a short time when he taught school, he did not make it earn his living for him. His theory was that life and energy were being wasted when a man spent in working more time than he absolutely needed to in order to provide himself with necessities; and this theory he carried out in his own life. While he lived in Concord, he did odd jobs at carpentering, surveying, and gardening, and worked for a time at his father's trade of pencil making.

However, he contended that a man was doing himself an injustice if he kept on at that work after he had reached the point where he could make no further improvement in his pencils.

From 1845 to 1847 Th.o.r.eau lived as a hermit in a hut which he had built on the sh.o.r.e of Walden Pond, and the simple life he led there gave him plenty of leisure for the things he liked best--the study of nature, the grappling with philosophical problems, and the society of friends. The result of the two years at Walden Pond was his best book, _Walden, or Life in the Woods_, a work which is distinguished for its peculiarly truthful and sympathetic studies of nature.

Th.o.r.eau refused to perform any of the ordinary duties of a citizen; he never voted, he never paid taxes. Once he was arrested because he refused to pay his taxes, and was thrown into jail; his friends remonstrated with him, but still he refused to pay. However, when his friends paid the sum he made no objections to accepting his release, nor did he in the future make any objections when his friends quietly paid his taxes.

_The Pond in Winter_ and _Winter Animals_, which are contained in this volume, are also from Th.o.r.eau.

Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.

The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes. It could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played at bo-peep with it; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away.

A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine which grew against the house. In June the partridge (_Tetrao umbellus_), which is so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your approach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such gem. The traveler does not often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time, and leaves these innocents to fall a prey to some prowling beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying leaves which they so much resemble.

It is said that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on some alarm, and are so lost, for they never hear the mother's call which gathers them again. These were my hens and chickens.

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live there!

He grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the racc.o.o.n in the woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard their whinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring which was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under Brister's Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was through a succession of descending gra.s.sy hollows, full of young pitch pines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean firm sward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest. Thither, too, the woodc.o.c.k led her brood, to probe the mud for worms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get off her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too the turtledoves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF THE ANTS]

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking further, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a _duellum_, but a _bellum_, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.

I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vise to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was "Conquer or die." In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar--for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red--he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why, here every ant was a b.u.t.terick--"Fire! for G.o.d's sake, fire!"--and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was a.s.siduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the gla.s.s, and he went off over the window sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. "aeneas Sylvius," say they, "after giving a very circ.u.mstantial account of one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a pear tree," adds that "'This action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.' A similar engagement between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, and left those of their giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden." The battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the pa.s.sage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.