Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/260

 dream of thirty years, I was not alone. There were three friends who keenly appreciated all that it meant.

We had made good in our boasted undertaking of taking ladies on a real gorilla hunt, presumably the last word of danger and adventure in the popular mind. Another popular illusion gone to smash! It was adventure full of beauty and charm and hard work, but absolutely without danger.

The gorilla is not dangerous, but he is impressive. I have taken a tape and measured around the chests of two good-sized men standing back to back. The two together measured three inches less than Bradley's gorilla alone. His chest unexpanded was 62 inches. He weighed about as much as two men, 360 pounds.

Although not so tall as Dempsey, the gorilla weighs nearly twice as much, and his arms are longer and more powerful. But his legs, on the other hand, are much shorter. Unquestionably a well-developed man can travel both faster and farther than a gorilla.

One can visualize something of his size by a comparison of his measurements with those of Jack Dempsey.

GORILLA             DEMPSEY

Height        5 ft. 7-1/2 in. 6 ft. 1 in.

Weight        360 lbs. 188 lbs.

Chest         62 in. 42 in.

Upper arm     18 in. 16-1/4 in.

Reach         97 in. 74 in.

Calf          15-3/4 in. 15-1/4 in.