ho
doubted Mr. Du Chaillu's first book; it certainly renews in the reader
of the present work the satisfaction felt in the comparative
reasonableness of the things narrated, and his consequent ability to put
an unmurmuring trust in the author. Here, indeed, is very little of the
gorilla whom we formerly knew: his ferocity is greatly abated; he only
once beats his breast and roars; he does not twist gun-barrels; his
domestic habits are much simplified; his appearance here is relatively
as unimportant as Mr. Pendennis's in the "Newcomes"; he is a deposed
hero; and Mr. Du Chaillu pushes on to Ashango-Land without him.
Otherwise, moreover, the narrative is quite credible, and, so far,
unattractive, though there is still enough of incident to hold the idle,
and enough of information in the appendices concerning the
characteristics of the African skulls collected by Du Chaillu, the
geographical and astronomical observations made _en route_, and the
linguistic peculiarities noted, to interest the scientific. The book is
perhaps not a fortunate one for those who occupy a place between these
classes of readers, and who are tempted to ask of Mr. Du Chaillu, Have
you really four hundred and thirty-seven royal octavo pages of news to
tell us of Equatorial Africa?

Our traveller landed in West Africa in the autumn of 1863, and, after a
short excursion in the coast country in search of the gorilla, he
ascended the Fernand Vaz in a steamer seventy miles, to Goumbi, whence
he proceeded by canoe to Obindji. Here, provided with a retinue of one
hundred men of the Commi nation, his overland journey began, and led
him through the hilly country of the Bakalai southeastwardly to the
village of Olenda. From this point, before continuing his route, he
visited the falls of the Samba Nagoshi, some fifty miles to the
northward, and Adingo Village, twenty miles below Olenda. Starting anew
after these excursions, he penetrated the continent, on a line
deflecting a little south of east, as far as Mouaou Kombo, which is
something more than two hundred miles from the sea.

In first landing from his ship, Mr. Du Chaillu lost his astronomical
instruments, and was obliged to wait in the coast country until a new
supply could be obtained from England. Midway on his journey to Mouaou
Kombo, his photographic apparatus was stolen, and the chemicals were, as
he supposes, swallowed by the robbers, to some of whom their dishonest
experiments in photography pr