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ORDEAL OF THE HOT RING.

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standing in a well-shaded place, ranges from 106° to 98°. There is but little breeze, and the air is oppressively hot. On the 2d of April I saw another trial by ordeal performed. A little boy, son to Aquailai, the doctor who had driven the witch from the main street of Goumbi, reported that one of Quengueza's men had damaged a Bakalai canoe. The owner required to be paid for the injury. The Goumbi man denied the act, and asked for trial. An Ashira doctor was called in, who said that the only way to make the truth appear was by the trial of the ring boiled in oil. Hereupon the Bakalai and the Goumbi men gathered together, and the trial was at once made.

The Ashira doctor set three little billets of bar-wood in the ground with their ends together, then piled some smaller pieces between, till all were laid as high as the three pieces. A native pot half full of palm-oil was set upon the wood, and the oil was set on fire. When it burned up brightly a brass ring from the doctor's hand was cast in the pot; the doctor stood by with a little vase full of grass soaked in water, of which he threw in now and then some bits. This made the oil blaze up afresh. At last all was burned out, and now came the trial. The accuser, the little boy, was required to take the ring out of the pot. He hesi tated, but was pushed on by his father. The people cried out, "Let us see if he lied or told truth."

Finally he put his hand in, seized the red-hot ring, but quickly dropped it, having severely burnt his fingers. At this there was a shout, "He lied! he lied!" and the Goumbi man was declared innocent.

I ventured to suggest that he also would burn his fingers if he touched the ring; but nobody seemed to consider this view. I judge that where an accuser has to substantiate a charge in this way information is not easily to be got.

On the 6th, at last, we set off for a two or three days' hunt. We went up river for about ten miles, and then struck inland to a deserted Bakalai village, where we made our camp. When that was arranged we went out to look for gorilla-tracks. It was too late to hunt; but Querlaouen, my chief hunter, wanted to be ready for the morrow. I saw nothing; but Malaouen, another hunter, came in after dark, and said he had heard the cry of the kooloo, and knew where to find it in the morning.

Of course I asked what this kooloo was, and received for an

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swer a circumstantial description of the animal, which threw me into the greatest excitement; for I saw that this was most certainly a new species of ape, of which I had not even heard as yet. It was called kooloo-kamba by the Goumbi people, from its noise or call, "kooloo," and the Camma word kamba, which means "speak." The Bakalai call it simply Koola.

I scarce slept all night with fidgeting over the morrow's prospects. The kooloo was said to be very rare here, and there was a chance only that we should find that one whose call had been heard.

At last the tedious night was gone. At the earliest streak of dawn I had my men up. We had fixed our guns the night before. All was ready, and we set out in two parties. My party had been walking through the forest about an hour, when suddenly I stepped into a file of bashikouay ants, whose fierce bites nearly made me scream. The little rascals were infuriated at my disturbance of their progress, and held on to my legs and to my trowsers till I picked them off. Of course I jumped nimbly out of the way of the great army of which they formed part, but I did not get off without some severe bites.

We had hardly got clear of the bashikouays when my ears were saluted by the singular cry of the ape I was after. "Koolakooloo, koola-kooloo," it said several times. Gambo and Malaouen alone were with me. Gambo and I raised our eyes, and saw, high up in a tree-branch, a large ape. We both fired at once, and the next moment the poor beast fell with a heavy crash to the ground. I rushed up, anxious to see if, indeed, I had a new animal. I saw in a moment that it was neither a nshiego, nor a chimpanzee, nor a gorilla. Again I had a happy day-marked forever with red ink in my calendar.

We at once disemboweled the animal, which was a male. I found in its intestines only vegetable matter and remains. The skin and skeleton were taken into camp, where I cured the former with arsenic sufficiently to take it into Obindji.

The animal was a full-grown male four feet three inches high. It was less powerfully built than the male gorilla, but as powerful as either the chimpanzee or nshiego mbouve. When it was brought into Obindji, all the people, and even Quengueza, at once exclaimed, "That is a kooloo-kamba." Then I asked them about the other apes I already knew; but for these they had other

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names, and did not at all confound the species. For all these reasons I was assured that my prize was indeed a new animal, and not a variety of any of those before known.

The kooloo-kamba has for distinctive marks a very round head; whiskers running quite round the face and below the chin; the face is round; the cheek-bones prominent; the cheeks sunken; the jaws not very prominent-less so than in any of the apes. The hair is black; long on the arm, which was, however, partly bare.

The chimpanzee is not found in the woods where I shot this kooloo-kamba. The gorilla is evidently much the most powerful animal of the two. The kooloo is, however, the ape, of all the great apes now known, which most nearly approaches man in the structure of its head. The capacity of the cranium is somewhat greater, in proportion to the animal's size, than in either the gorilla or the nshiego mbouve. Of its habits these people could tell me nothing, except that farther interior it was found more frequently, and that it was, like the gorilla, very shy and hard of approach.

Meat was now becoming scarce, and I was glad to go back to town; and happier yet when Querlaouen overhauled us with a wild pig as a prize, of which the good fellow gave me half. The negroes were feasting on the kooloo meat, which I could not touch. So the pig was welcome to me, as indeed it was to Quengueza, whom we found almost crying with an affection which is common in Africa, and is called gouamba-but for which we, happily, have no name. Gouamba is the inordinate longing and craving of exhausted nature for meat. The vegetable diet here is not of a satisfying nature at best. Just now all provisions were scarce in Obindji, and even Quengueza had not tasted meat for four days. He was exhausted, nervous, and, though a stout old fellow, really whimpering. This was gouamba, of which I have suffered often enough in these wilds to vouch that it is a real and frightful tor

ture.

The rainy season is now at its height. The river is swollen; the water rushes down in a yellow muddy stream, and on a level with the banks. My house is but about four feet above the water-level, and it stands on high ground. Below, at this time, all is overflowed; and on the Anengue Lake the crocodiles have probably retired to the reeds.

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