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.