Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/229

 pinch myself occasionally to bring about the realization that I was not hunting elephants on a miniature Kenia. There was the same vegetation, except that the trees were smaller. There were elephant trails, but only a few and with small tracks. There were no great forest trees like those of Kenia, no bamboos seventy-five feet high with five-inch stems. There was just little stuff, but still it was all reminiscent of Kenia. One thing, the slopes were just as steep and just as slippery, and the mud in the level places just as deep and sticky as Kenia's.

Through this forest there are native trails or game trails almost everywhere. We had followed these trails for about two hours up the side of Mikeno when we came to a spot where there was a little mud hole in the path. I'll never forget it. In that mud hole were the marks of four great knuckles where the gorilla had placed his hand on the ground. There is no other track like this on earth—there is no other hand in the world so large. Nearest to it is the hand of the chimpanzee, and he does not place his hand on the ground in the same way. As I looked at that track I lost the faith on which I had brought my party to Africa. Instinctively I took my gun from the gun boy. I knew then the feeling Du Chaillu described in his quaint phrase, "My feelings were really excited to a painful degree."

I had more thrill from the sight of this first track than from anything that happened later. I forgot all about Kenia as the guide took up the trail. Half an hour later we came upon other tracks, tracks made