Chapter I: Front Matter

King Mombo

King Mombo

By

Paul Du Chaillu

Author of “The World of the Great Forest,” “The Viking Age,” “The Land of the Long Night,” “Ivar the Viking,” “The Land of the Midnight Sun,” “Explorations in Equatorial Africa,” “Stories of the Gorilla Country,” “Wild Life under the Equator,” “Lost in the Jungle,” “My Apingi Kingdom,” “The Country of the Dwarfs,” etc., etc.

_Illustrated by Victor Perard_

London
John Murray
1902

Copyright, 1902, by Charles Scribner’s Sons,
for the United States of America.

Printed at The University Press, John Wilson and Son,
Cambridge, U.S.A.

_TO_

_SOLOMON SOLIS COHEN, M.D._

_Philadelphia_

_MY DEAR SOLIS,—Looking back through the vista of years, and remembering your solicitude when I came to you broken in health, and the care, professional and other, through which your affection and skill restored me to health and permitted the resumption of my literary labors, my heart overflows. I take great pleasure in dedicating this volume to you as a partial evidence of the gratitude and brotherly affection of_

_Ever your firm friend_,

_PAUL DU CHAILLU_.

_New York, June 19, 1901._

Contents

CHAPTER I

PAGE
I leave New York for Africa—Narrow quarters on the schooner—Our
cargo—Out of sight of land—The sea and all that therein is—A
storm brewing 1

CHAPTER II

A storm at sea—A tempest-tossed little bird—Fine weather
again—Fight between a swordfish and a whale 10

CHAPTER III

The Sargasso Sea—The northeast trade-winds—Dolphins and
bonitas—New stars come into view 17

CHAPTER IV

The “Doldrums”—Fierce heat of the sun—Strong local currents—The
southwest trade-winds—Huge sharks all around us 22

CHAPTER V

Crossing the equator—The southeast trade-winds—The equatorial
current—The Gulf Stream—Struck by a tornado—Land in sight—Africa
at last—The great forest 28

CHAPTER VI

Wandering through the forest and learning the country—I reach King
Mombo’s village—Received by the king—His fear of
witchcraft—Visits my dwelling and receives presents from me 35

CHAPTER VII

Superstitions of King Mombo—Visits to the house of his idols and
his ancestors—A strange meal followed by a strange dance 41

CHAPTER VIII

Bad luck of Mombo’s village—Ascribed to witchcraft—Arrival of a
great medicine-man—His incantations—The accused sold as slaves 50

CHAPTER IX

King Mombo gives me the stick “Omemba”—I leave the village on a
hunting trip—Parting injunctions—A herd of hippopotami 55

CHAPTER X

Sounds of human voices—I encounter Regundo and his wife, slaves of
King Mombo—Other slaves—Hunters and warriors of Mombo 63

CHAPTER XI

Wonder of the natives at my Waterbury clock, magnet, matches, and
music-box—Character of Mombo’s plantation 72

CHAPTER XII

King Mombo’s plantation—Work of the slaves in clearing and
cultivating the forest—Strange village of the slaves—Houses of
the spirits—Regundo’s account of witchcraft and its
punishment—Ovengua 79

CHAPTER XIII

The native dogs—How they hunt their own game when they are not
fed—Their ways of attack—Their usefulness to their masters in
war-time—Oshoria’s story 87

CHAPTER XIV

A great hunting-feast—“Roondah”—Different viands of the
menu—Speeches at the banquet—Music and dancing—A weird forest
scene in the torchlight 95

CHAPTER XV

A talk with King Mombo’s slaves—Why slaves do not run away—Various
features of the traffic—The cannibals of the interior—My daily
occupations 104

CHAPTER XVI

The animals of the forest—Five kinds of apes—The ngina or
gorilla—His great strength and fierceness—How he attacks man and
other animals—Oshoria’s account of him 116

CHAPTER XVII

The other apes of the great forest—Oshoria tells about the nshiego
mbouvés—Capture of a baby “man of the woods”—His mother
killed—Correspondence of the different apes with the various
human races 124

CHAPTER XVIII

Angooka, the medicine-man—His strange appearance—Eavesdropping—I
overhear the conversation of the slaves—They talk among
themselves about the Oguizi 131

CHAPTER XIX

News brought that gorillas are near by in the forest—The dogs got
ready for the hunt—Their names—A grand hunting council—Regundo’s
wise advice—Cautions to be observed 134

CHAPTER XX

We start after the gorillas—Cautious walking through the
forest—The dogs find the ngina—Yells of the monster brought to
bay—He slaughters two of the dogs—Taunts of the hunters—Shot
through the heart at last 142

CHAPTER XXI

Singular sight in the forest—All kinds of animals fleeing in one
direction—A terrible ant—The bashikouay army—Attacked everywhere
at once—How I escaped the tormentors 153

CHAPTER XXII

A journey to the elephant country—Serious annoyance from flies,
wasps, and mosquitoes—In the midst of a drove of hippopotami 158

CHAPTER XXIII

Mudbanks covered with crocodiles—How they stalk their prey—An
unsuspecting boar suddenly swallowed up—Habits of the huge
creatures 164

CHAPTER XXIV

Difficulty of making our way—Fallen trees and dense thickets—Our
meat gives out—Looking for koola trees—A meal of their
nutritious nuts—Their importance to the traveller in the forest 171

CHAPTER XXV

Lost in the forest—A herd of elephants lures me on—Separated from
my hunters—Two nights on the ground and one in a tree—Found at
last—Joy of the men 178

CHAPTER XXVI

The elephant hunting-ground—The beautiful prairie skirting the
forest—The welcome sky and sun and stars after the forest
gloom—Hunting elephants by moonlight—Three large herds—Narrow
escape of Oshoria and myself—Death of the huge tusker 193

CHAPTER XXVII

The killing of a second elephant—How bull elephants fight—The
contest for the leadership of the herd—Oshoria’s graphic account
of a battle royal witnessed by him—Return to the plantation 206