These attracted a number of birds that
resembled gulls of a light build. They had coal-black heads, white
backs, greyish wings, and slightly webbed feet, pink as coral, with
which they seized the small fish, uttering as they did so, a peculiar
and plaintive cry that ended in a long-drawn _e-e-e_. The father of the
flock, whose head seemed to be white like his back, perhaps from age,
hung above them, not troubling to fish himself, but from time to
time forcing one of the company to drop what he had caught, which he
retrieved before it reached the water. Such are some of the small things
that come back to me, though there were others too numerous and trivial
to mention.

When the breeze failed us at last we were perhaps something over three
miles from the shore, or rather from the great bed of reeds which at
this spot grow in the shallows off the Mazitu coast to a breadth of
seven or eight hundred yards, where the water becomes too deep for them.
The Pongos were then about a mile and a half behind. But as the wind
favoured them for a few minutes more and, having plenty of hands, they
could help themselves on by paddling, when at last it died to a complete
calm, the distance between us was not more than one mile. This meant
that they must cover four miles of water, while we covered three.

Letting down our now useless sail and throwing it and the mast overboard
to lighten the canoe, since the sky showed us that there was no more
hope of wind, we began to paddle as hard as we could. Fortunately the
two ladies were able to take their share in this exercise, since they
had learned it upon the Lake of the Flower, where it seemed they kept
a private canoe upon the other side of the island which was used for
fishing. Hans, who was still weak, we set to steer with a paddle aft,
which he did in a somewhat erratic fashion.

A stern chase is proverbially a long chase, but still the enemy with
their skilled rowers came up fast. When we were a mile from the reeds
they were within half a mile of us, and as we tired the proportion of
distance lessened. When we were two hundred yards from the reeds they
were not more than fifty or sixty yards behind, and then the real
struggle began.

It was short but terrible. We threw everything we could overboard,
including the ballast stones at the bottom of the canoe and the heavy
hide of the gorilla. This, as it proved, was fortunate, since the thing
sank but slowly and the foremost Pongo boat