ed 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."

"You mistake me. I mean that I wonder whether the footprint is old, or
if it has been made recently."

"Him's quite noo," interposed our guide.

"How d'ye know, Mak?"

"'Cause me see."

"Ay; but what do you see that enables you to form such an opinion?"

"O Ralph, how can you expect a nigger to understand such a sentence as
that?" said Jack, as he turned to Mak and added, "What do you see?"

"Me see one leetle stick brok in middel. If you look to him you see him
white and clean. If hims was old, hims would be mark wid rain and
dirt."

"There!" cried Peterkin, giving me a poke in the side, "see what it is
to be a minute student of the small things in nature. Make a note of
it, Ralph."

I did make a note of it mentally on the spot, and then proposed that we
should go in search of the gorilla without further delay.

We were in the midst of a dark gloomy wood in the neighbourhood of a
range of mountains whose blue serrated peaks rose up into the clouds.
Their sides were partly clothed with wood. We were travelling--not
hunting--at the time we fell in with the track above referred to, so we
immediately ordered the men to encamp where they were, while we should
go after the gorilla, accompanied only by Mak, whose nerves we could
depend on.

Shouldering our trusty rifles, and buckling tight the belts of our heavy
hunting-knives, w