. The world of the great forest : how animals, birds, reptiles, insects talk, think, work and live . s, in the midst of thegreen leaves that surrounded them. They werealmost like the faces of white human beings after along illness, but darker. They had met toward evening near their twobowers, as was their habit, when they had to separate toseek food during the day. Suddenly the smaller onesaid to his mate : I saw a strange being to-day, thelike of whom you and I have never seen during ourlives. He had a pale face like ours, and very long,black, shaggy hair, as black as ours, fell from his head
. The world of the great forest : how animals, birds, reptiles, insects talk, think, work and live . s, in the midst of thegreen leaves that surrounded them. They werealmost like the faces of white human beings after along illness, but darker. They had met toward evening near their twobowers, as was their habit, when they had to separate toseek food during the day. Suddenly the smaller onesaid to his mate : I saw a strange being to-day, thelike of whom you and I have never seen during ourlives. He had a pale face like ours, and very long,black, shaggy hair, as black as ours, fell from his headlow down on his back. He walked quite erect, hadlong legs, much longer than ours, and a shorter body ;his arrns were also much shorter than ours. All Icould see was his pale face and his short white hands,and his whole body was unlike these in color. I can-not explain what this was, for I have never seen thelike of it before. Strange to say, his feet were blackand not of the color of his face, and he had no carried something like a stick. He looked at me 191 THE WORLD OF THE GREAT FOREST. with such peculiar eyes that I was dreadfully fright-ened, and I fled. Then I heard coming from him a 192 TWO NKENGOS, OR PALE-FACED APES terrible noise like a clap of thunder, and somethingwhistled by like a sharp insect, and made a gash in atree ahead of me. 1 ran as fast as my legs would carryme, and escaped him, and I am safe by your side. The old nkengo listened attentively. Then afterhis mate had stopped, he replied: Truly, you giveme strange news. Are you sure it was not a nkengolike ourselves ? Yes, she replied ; I am sure this strange creaturewas not a nkengo. How sure are you, he asked again, that he wasnot one of these human beings that we see sometimesin our forest ^ No, she answered; the human beings we seehave not that color, neither have they long black hairlike his. He had their shape, but his body was notlike theirs or ours. No wonder that the nkengo had been astonishe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectanimals, bookyear1901
