The way I fell in with him was on this wise. My companions had, I suppose, all been killed by the poisoned arrows of the dwarfs, or had made good their escape from them without caring to wait to see whether I was among the slain or not. I had been wandering alone in the jungle for some days, subsisting on berries and lichens gathered from the trees. I had to devour these raw, having no means of making a fire to cook them or to warm myself. Nearly starved and quite weary I laid me down, as I thought, to die, and was in a sort of semi-torpid state. I was roused up by yells and shrieks. Lifting my head, I saw that some men were attacking a troop of sokos or gorillas, and that one of the sokos had seized a man by the hand with his teeth.
Evidently these men were only a portion of those engaged in the chase of the gorillas, for I heard the sound of guns. I soon saw a man coming up with a white skull-cap on his head. Besides a cloth round his loins, he wore a kind of sleeveless waistcoat, and bore in his hand a gun which had been recently discharged.
The sight of a gun brought a flood of memories rushing into my head, and raised hopes that people who
had guns must be in communication with white men. The remaining gorillas were soon despatched. I tried to attract the attention of the hunters; but as I attempted to rise to my feet I found I was too weak to do so, and all the sounds that I could utter were faint and inarticulate.
At last I attracted the attention of some of the men, and one was about to hurl a spear at me, when the man with the gun prevented him, and came running to where I was lying. I was a curious object to look at, being clothed only in some scanty shreds of native grass-cloth, and my hair hanging in matted and dishevelled masses on my shoulders. My skin was burnt and discoloured by exposure to sun, wind, and weather, and changed to almost the colour of mahogany, except just round my neck and on my forehead, where my hair had sheltered it; and my beard, which had commenced to grow, hid nearly all my face.
He was followed by some of his men, and they began to examine me curiously, and seemed much astonished, especially when, lifting up my hair and removing the remains of my clothing, they saw the natural colour of my skin. “Mzungu, mzungu!” I heard them cry, while they held up their hands in astonishment. The man with the gun said, “Portugoo, Francèse, Ingleez?” as if asking me what countryman I was, so I replied, “English.”