They came from every direction, down the
bank and out of the river; and crossed and recrossed, and beneath
the fresh prints that had been made that morning at sunrise, were
those of days before rising up sharply out of the sun-dried clay,
like bas-reliefs in stucco. I had gone ashore in a state of mind so
skeptical that I was as surprised as Crusoe at the sight of
footprints. It was as though the boy who did not believe in fairies
suddenly stumbled upon them sliding down the moonbeams. One felt
distinctly apologetic--as though uninvited he had pushed himself
into a family gathering. At the same time there was the excitement
of meeting in their own homes the strange peoples I had seen only in
the springtime, when the circus comes to New York, in the basement
of Madison Square Garden, where they are our pitiful prisoners,
bruising their shoulders against bars. Here they were monarchs of
all they surveyed. I was the intruder; and, looking down at the
marks of the great paws and delicate hoofs, I felt as much out of
place as would a grizzly bear in a Fifth Avenue club. And I behaved
much as would the grizzly bear. I rushed back for my rifle intent on
killing something.
The sun had just set; the moon was shining faintly: it was the
moment the beasts of the jungle came to the river to drink. Anfossi,
although he had spent three years in the Congo and had three years'
contract still to work out, was as determined to kill something as
was the tenderfoot from New York.
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