At the end of this lazy steamer trip we came to Kabalo from which occasionally a train sets out upon the journey to Albertville on Lake Tanganyika. A boat on the lake took us from Albertville to Usumbura from which a seven days' safari brought us to the lower end of Lake Kivu. To get from the bottom of Lake Kivu to the upper end, we had to make arrangements for a special trip of the little government boat. This we did with the Belgian Administrator at Usumbura. Here, as elsewhere, my experience with the administrative officers in these outposts of the Belgian Congo was one of courtesy and effectiveness. Halfway up the lake we stopped at the White Friars' Mission on the west bank and heard the story of a gorilla recently killed in the vicinity. This gorilla had come down into a banana grove not far from the Mission. The chief of the village which owned the grove told his followers to go out and chase the beast away, but not to go armed, for the beast, in the superstition of the neighbourhood, had some sacred attributes. The chief's subjects accordingly went forth with sticks to drive out the gorilla, but he refused to be driven and resented the disturbance enough to catch one of his tormentors and kill him. After this the chief thought the gorilla less sacred and ordered his subjects to take their spears with them and kill the animal.
I was not entirely clear about the veracity of this tale nor whether it confirmed my theory about the gorilla or the more usual "ferocious" theory. If the natives were willing to go out to chase the gorilla
