“It never rains but it pours,” is a true proverb. I have often noticed, in the course of my observations on sublunary affairs, that events seldom come singly. I have often gone out fishing for trout in the rivers of my native land, day after day, and caught nothing, while at other times I have, day after day, returned home with my basket full.

 

As it was in England, so I found it in Africa. For many days after our arrival in the gorilla country, we wandered about without seeing a single creature of any kind. Lions, we ascertained, were never found in those regions, and we were told that this was in consequence of their having been beaten off the field by gorillas. But at last, after we had all, severally and collectively, given way to despair, we came upon the tracks of a gorilla, and from that hour we were kept constantly on the qui vive, and in the course of the few weeks we spent in that part of the country, we “bagged,” as Peterkin expressed it, “no end of gorillas”—great and small, young and old.

 

I will never forget the powerful sensations of excitement and anxiety that filled our breasts when we came on the first gorilla footprint. We felt as no doubt Robinson Crusoe did when he discovered the footprint of a savage in the sand. Here at last was the indubitable evidence of the existence and presence of the terrible animal we had come so far to see. Here was the footstep of that creature about which we had heard so many wonderful stories, whose existence the civilised world had, up to within a very short time back, doubted exceedingly, and in regard to which, even now, we knew comparatively very little.

 

Makarooroo assured us that he had hunted this animal some years ago, and had seen one or two at a distance, though he had never killed one, and stated most emphatically that the footprint before us, which happened to be in a soft sandy spot, was undoubtedly caused by the foot of a gorilla.

 

Being satisfied on this head, we four sat down in a circle round the footprint to examine it, while our men stood round about us, looking on with deep interest expressed in their dark faces.

 

“At last!” said I, carefully brushing away some twigs that partly covered the impression.

 

“Ay, at last!” echoed Jack, while his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

 

“Ay,” observed Peterkin, “and a pretty big last he must require, too. I shouldn’t like to be his shoemaker. What a thumb, or a toe. One doesn’t know very well which to call it.”

 

“I wonder if it’s old?” said I.

 

“As old as the hills,” replied Peterkin; “at least 50 I would judge from its size.”

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