CHAPTER XXXI

THE TWO NKENGOS, OR PALE-FACED APES

In the midst of the dark foliage of a group of trees stood two pale yellow-faced nkengos (men of the woods). Strange, indeed, looked their yellow, wrinkled, parchment-like faces, in the midst of the green leaves that surrounded them. They were almost like the faces of white human beings after a long illness, but darker.

They had met toward evening near their two bowers, as was their habit, when they had to separate to seek food during the day. Suddenly the smaller one said to his mate: “I saw a strange being to-day, the like of whom you and I have never seen during our lives. He had a pale face like ours, and very long, black, shaggy hair, as black as ours, fell from his head low down on his back. He walked quite erect, had long legs, much longer than ours, and a shorter body; his arms were also much shorter than ours. All I could see was his pale face and his short white hands, and his whole body was unlike these in color. I cannot explain what this was, for I have never seen the like of it before. Strange to say, his feet were black and not of the color of his face, and he had no toes. He carried something like a stick. He looked at me with such peculiar eyes that I was dreadfully frightened, and I fled. Then I heard coming from him a terrible noise like a clap of thunder, and something whistled by like a sharp insect, and made a gash in a tree ahead of me. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, and escaped him, and I am safe by your side.”

[Illustration: [Gorillas]]

The old nkengo listened attentively. Then after his mate had stopped, he replied: “Truly, you give me strange news. Are you sure it was not a nkengo like ourselves?”

“Yes,” she replied; “I am sure this strange creature was not a nkengo.”

“How sure are you,” he asked again, “that he was not one of these human beings that we see sometimes in our forest?”

“No,” she answered; “the human beings we see have not that color, neither have they long black hair like his. He had their shape, but his body was not like theirs or ours.”

No wonder that the nkengo had been astonished and frightened in seeing the pale-faced human being, with long shaggy hair hanging over his shoulders, for he was the first of his kind that had entered the heart of the big forest. His face had color before he came to that land of trees, but fever, hunger, and all kinds of hardships had taken that color away and made his face lemon-yellow and pale as that of the nkengos.

His country was in the west, toward the north, across the great sea, and had snow and ice, winter, spring, summer, and autumn, instead of a rainy and dry season and summer all the time. The stick the nkengo thought he carried, was his gun, and the clap of thunder she heard, was when he fired that gun; the whistle and the thing that struck the tree was the bullet he had fired at her. His black feet without toes were his shoes. What covered his body was his clothes. He had come to that forest to see the wonderful animals that lived in it, and to study their habits and those of the wild human beings. His name was Paul.

The two nkengos were much disturbed during the night, for they could not sleep, and were thinking all the time of the human being with a pale face like theirs, and of his long dark hair and the thunder that came out of the stick.

The following morning, after they had come down from their respective bowers and trees, they walked for a little while together, and then separated to go after berries, nuts, and fruits, for there were not enough of these together for the two. They agreed to keep near each other. So now and then their voices could be heard calling out as they moved along in the great forest.

The big nkengo found a place with trees full of nuts and called to his mate to come and partake of the feast. When they met they were glad and had a grand time eating nuts. When they could eat no more, it was about time to return to their bowers, which were distant about half a day’s journey. On their way back, they met a very old nkengo with a face full of furrows and wrinkles. He was so old that he had lost all his teeth but five. He was stiff with rheumatism and pain and could hardly walk. “How are you, dear old nkengo?” they inquired with looks of pity on their faces.

He answered: “I am old and shall soon die. I wander alone in the forest, for I cannot follow the other nkengos. They walk too fast for me. I have hardly any teeth, and now I can only feed on leaves. I have not the strength to go after fruits, for I cannot climb trees as I used to do. All I am able to do is to hoist myself on some tree to sleep. I cannot make bowers any more. A leopard will probably eat me one of these days, for I am unable to defend myself. My mate is dead.”

Then they said: “Dear old nkengo, we are sorry for you. We pity you. We wish we could be with you, but life is a struggle. We have often to go far away during the day to get our living, and if we were to stay with you we should starve, for we hate leaves, and they are not sufficient to satisfy our hunger. Good-by. Good-by.”

And the poor old nkengo was left to himself to finish his life in the best way he could.

Two or three days after they had met the old nkengo, the big one said to his mate, as they returned to their bowers in the evening: “When we built our bower here some days ago, our place at first was surrounded by fruits, nuts, and berries. The trees were full of them. We had but a little way to go to find our food, but as usual every day we had to go a little farther, as we had eaten everything around here. It takes so much to feed us daily. Now we have to go so far that it almost takes the whole day to go to and from our shelter before it gets dark. We must find another country where food is plentiful; for two or three days past we have not eaten enough to satisfy our appetites.

“Let us journey to-morrow morning to that part of the forest where we know that at this moon of the rainy season we shall find plenty to eat. We shall be there in two days if we travel fast, and hope to arrive before the monkeys and the ngoas and men of the woods make their appearance, and eat everything, and leave nothing for us.” His mate agreed with him, and they ascended their trees and lay down in their bowers.

Before daybreak the guinea fowls and the partridges by their cackling announced that daylight was soon coming. By this time all the nocturnal animals had retired to their hiding-places, some in their burrows, others in the holes of trees or in other dark places.

The nkengo said to his mate, “The partridges and the guinea fowls have told all those who get their living in daylight that the dawn is coming, and that the sun will soon rise. As soon as we can see, we will begin our journey.” A little while after, they started and found the food very scanty as they went along, as they were travelling over the ground they had been over before.

By the afternoon they had come to a new land where berries, nuts, and fruits began to be plentiful, and they were very glad. But they were very suspicious also, for since one of them had seen the pale-faced human being with long black hair they were more shy than they ever had been before, and they were in constant dread of meeting him with his stick, which sent forth claps of thunder.

Their wild and eager eyes glanced in every direction, trying to pierce through the forest, and they listened to every noise they heard, fearing that it was he that was coming. The sense of hearing of the men of the woods is so keen that they can hear the slightest noise a long way off. During the day they had been alarmed several times.

Toward evening the nkengo said: “To-night we will sleep upon the branches of trees, and early to-morrow we will go farther and see if food is still plentiful; and if it is, we will find two trees upon which to build our bowers. I am glad that we have found no traces of nginas, nshiegos, mbouvés, and kooloo-kambas, so we are the first on the ground,” and he grinned when he said this, for he thought of the grand time and fine feasting they were to have.

“But,” he added, “I hope the nginas will not make their appearance when we are here, for we cannot fight them, they are so strong. We shall have to give way to them, otherwise they would break our ribs with a blow of their strong arms and kill us.”

The sun had just set. It was getting dark in the forest. The nkengos ascended two trees and bade each other good-night. Early the following morning they explored the country farther and continued to meet with plenty of nuts, fruits, and a few berries, and some nice juicy canes. Before noon, they stopped and said: “This country is good; food is plentiful; let us build our bowers here, for we shall have food all around us.”

The two trees they were looking for were not so easy to find. They had to be almost side by side. After a tedious search the big nkengo found them. He called aloud for his mate, who answered him, then shouted to her that he had found the trees they were in search of. The first transverse limbs of these trees were high up (at least twenty-five or thirty feet above the ground), and there was no jungle round them. These limbs upon which they could build their bowers were covered with branches, strong and slender, which they could twist together. After looking at them, the big nkengo said to his mate who had come up, “The leopards will not be able to climb these trees, and the big omembas will not be able to crawl from other trees to ours.” They each ascended one of the trees and began to make their own bowers by intertwining their branches. They made them in the shape of a slightly hollow dish, put leaves inside, and when they were ready, they said to each other, “What fine bowers we have made! We could not have found better trees. How well we shall sleep in them!” Then they gave peculiar guttural sounds, such as the nkengos make when they are satisfied. That night they slept soundly.

Early in the morning they awoke and greeted each other by saying, “Whoe, whoe,” which meant something like “Good-morning.” Then they said, “Our bowers were rather hard last night, but in two or three days the branches will have bent to our shape.”

[Illustration: [Gorillas]]

They descended and came toward each other. That day they had not far to go to get food, for some of the trees close to their new home were loaded with fruit. They ascended these by catching their lower branches with their hands and holding fast, then pulling themselves up with their muscular arms. They ate so much that they had to lie down on their backs in their bowers and take a good rest. In the afternoon they went out for another meal, and did not return until sunset.

The following day the nkengos, having found a great deal of food, returned to their bowers earlier than usual, for, like all the men of the woods, when they have no appetite to stir them up, they are very lazy and like either to stay in one place or loiter about.

As they were ready to ascend their trees, suddenly the old nkengo said to his mate, “Listen! listen!” The countenances of the two changed immediately; they stood up; they became all ears, and their faces wore a peculiar wild, anxious look.

The old nkengo was right. They heard an unusual, strange noise, as if all the tops of the trees were being shaken by a strong wind. This strange noise became more distinct as it approached. Louder and louder it grew, and they recognized the footsteps of the elephants tramping through the jungle. The njokoos were coming toward them. They ascended their trees quickly, and in a short time a herd of njokoos passed at full speed by them. They stood silent as they looked upon the monsters, and finally said to each other, “The njokoos seem to be in a panic; but why?”

Their anxiety was not removed, for they found out that the tramping of the njokoos had only drowned the noise made by other animals. Then they said to each other, “The bashikouay ants are coming our way; they are on the war path; the creatures of the forest are fleeing before them. Let us also flee and get out of their way.” They descended and fled on all fours, for with their great bulky bodies they could not make their way from branch to branch like the monkeys. But on the ground they could run very swiftly and cover more space in a given time than the monkeys.

They looked very queer, with their bodies partly erect on account of the length of their arms, their hands closed and their fists striking the ground.

They went on with all their might, crossed over shallow, clear little streams with sandy bottoms, and after a journey of some fifty miles came to a large river they had never seen before, and stopped. As they looked at the water, they saw some antelopes swimming to the opposite side, and said dolefully to each other, “The nkengos cannot swim like kambis, so we cannot cross the rivers.”

So, as it was nearly dark, and they could not cross the river, they were forced to ascend two trees on their bank to spend the night.

Early the next morning, having heard no flight of animals during the night, and seeing no sign of the bashikouays, they retraced their steps toward their bowers; and though they had never been in this part of the forest before, they knew their way back. In the afternoon they saw a clump of trees loaded with fine big ripe nuts. Near them was a limpid stream forming a deep pool, so clear that they could see the bottom. The pool was full of fish.

The two nkengos were soon on the nut trees, giving chuckles of contentment as they fed. After a bountiful repast, they watched the fish, and were much interested in seeing them swim.

While the nkengos were watching the fish, a very remarkable little animal, looking like a pigmy otter, had followed the bank of the stream and came to the pool, where a number of stones piled on each other lay under the water.

Suddenly a plash was heard, and the pool was covered with ripples. The nkengos thought a stick or dead limb had fallen into the water, but looking for it they saw none. The little otter had dropped into the water, had caused the ripples, and had hidden under the stones to watch for fish. He could see through the clear water as an eagle can see through the air. Lying under the stone, he watched for prey, and said to himself, “What a delightful morsel a fish is! I am hungry. Surely I shall get a meal in this pool; there must be fish here.” Then he awaited his opportunity, his eyes looking sharply around.

The fish were not aware of the presence of this little enemy, their greatest one except the bigger fish. They were after the insects and flies that were skimming over the water, and gobbling them as fast as they could.

Then darting from under the stone, propelled by his tail with the quickness of an arrow, the otter made for one of the fish and seized him, after which he returned to his hiding-place to devour him. The poor fish had just begun his own dinner.

After looking at all this, the nkengos continued their journey toward their bowers. They picked out food on their way, and were glad when they reached their home that evening. “To-night,” they said, “we shall sleep comfortably. How much better we shall rest than sitting on the branch of a tree! what a lovely home we have built!”

Every day they had to go a little farther from their bowers to find food. After ten or twelve days they had to go so far that they decided to move again and build another shelter somewhere else. And this they had to keep doing throughout their lives. Time went on; they moved many times, but they never forgot the pale-faced human being with long black shaggy hair hanging over his shoulders. They were constantly afraid of meeting him.