Okapi

“ Muata hauled on the rope, boarded the Okapi, and set the canoe adrift.
"Do as I have said—gather the men quickly, light a fire, guide us to the hiding-place, and in the morning we will share the riches. ”

“ According to the information elicited from the forest dwarfs by Sir Harry Johnston, the Okapi generally goes about in pairs—male and female—and neither sex has horns. It inhabits only the most dense portions of the forest, and feeds chiefly by browsing upon leaves. ”

“ Males have a pair of dagger-shaped horns on the forehead, the tips of which, in some cases at any rate, perforate the hairy skin with which the rest of the horns are covered. As in all forest-dwelling animals, the ears are large and capacious. The tail is shorter than in giraffes, and not tufted at the tip. The okapi, of which the first entire skin sent to Europe was received in England from Sir H. H. Johnston in the spring of 1901, is a native of the Semliki forest, in the district between Lakes Albert and Albert Edward. ”

“ I'm not sure if it will; you've taken my colour, too. Some fool might think you were me at a distance.' So the meek okapi had added a few stripes on his legs, like a zebra, just to make him less like the scornful antelope.
He lives in dense forests, and eats grass as a cow [Pg 331] does, and is very shy; and the only people who have seen him alive are the natives, who told an Englishman about him, and then managed to shoot one, and bring its skin to sell to the Englishman. But now that he is known of, it will probably not be long before a live one is captured. ”

“ Another of these large corner groups will be a scene of the plains, a rock kopje with characteristic animals such as the klipspringer, hyrax, Chanler's reedbuck, and baboons on the rocks, the background leading off across the plain showing a herd of plains animals—and the adjoining group continuing the story by showing more of the species of the plains. The third of the large corner groups will represent a Congo forest scene with the okapi and chimpanzee perhaps, and such animals as may be associated legitimately with the okapi. ”

“ The okapi (a genus restricted to Africa) is found only in the dense forests of the Congo basin. Bears are confined to the Atlas region, wolves and foxes to North Africa. The elephant (though its range has become restricted through the attacks of hunters) is found both in the savannas and forest regions, the latter being otherwise poor in large game, though the special habitat of the chimpanzee and gorilla. Baboons and mandrills, with few exceptions, are peculiar to Africa. The single-humped camel—as a domestic animal—is especially characteristic of the northern deserts and steppes. ”

“ In fact, I think that most American sportsmen who have hunted in Africa now share that view, and credit the rhino with very rarely running at a hunter or a party in order to do damage.
The Okapi, of Central Africa, inhabits dense jungles of arboreal vegetation and they are so expert in detecting the presence of man and in escaping from him that thus far, so far as we are aware, no white man has ever shot one! ”

“ The living okapi is classed with the giraffe group.
Sambur (Cervus aristotelis) , a species of stag abundant in the forest-land of some parts of India, Burma, and China. It stands about five feet high, is a powerful animal, and is much hunted. The color is dark brown; the antlers are rounded, and belong to a type known as Rusine.
Tahr (Hemitragus jemlaicus) , a goat-like animal, differs from the true goats, especially in the absence of a beard. The male is generally from three to three and a half feet in height at the shoulder; the horns seldom exceed fifteen inches in length. ”

“ Every zoologist and lover of animals who goes into the colonies has a wide field of activity open before him in this respect. If only more people could be made to take an interest in these things we might buoy ourselves up with the hope of obtaining and keeping some of the best and rarest specimens of African animal life, perhaps even a full-grown gorilla from the West Coast—perhaps even an Okapi! ”

“ The elephant group, the white rhinoceroses, and one of the okapi are completed and are now on exhibition. Work on the gorilla group is advancing rapidly. There are already collected and awaiting their turn to be mounted materials for a black rhino group and a lion group. ”

“ Giraffidae.—In the Giraffidae, which include not only giraffes (Giraffa) but also the okapi (Ocapia) and a number of extinct species from the Lower Pliocene Tertiary deposits of southern Europe, Asia and North Africa, the appendages on the skull are of type No I., and may well be designated “antler-horns.” Another important feature is that the lower canine has a cleft or two-lobed crown, so that it is unlike the incisors to which it is approximated. There are no upper canines ”

“ The round of Old Biskra and its villages is readily made on foot or by carriages; and one may even continue farther afield to the sandy, wavy dunes of the desert, and to the “Fontaine Chaude,” or to the Shrine of Sidi-Okba, twenty kilometres out over the camel trail of the open desert. This excursion to Sidi-Okba is classic.
Sidi-Okba sits in the midst of a fine oasis of some seventy thousand date-growing palms. It is a miserable, unlovely enough little village, but the memory of the Arab conqueror, Okba-ben-Nofi, has made it famous. ”

“ Twelve wersts from Okotik, a tolerably large salt work was pointed out to me on the sea coast; the men employed in it were all malefactors or convicts. Beyond this house we left the sea at our left, and travelled for some time on the banks of the Okhota.
If the breaking up of this river occasion such alarm to the inhabitants of the town, its overflowings are not less fatal to the environs. Rising above the banks, the water not only floods the adjacent country, but becomes a torrent, that swells as it extends itself. It has been said to rise two feet above the tops of the highest trees. ”

“ Oghabi and Okpa both lived at Inkum. They had always been great friends since they were boys, and when they grew up they made farms in the same place and used to feed together. As they became richer they bought slaves and canoes and lived in separate houses, each man having one wife. At last Oghabi became tired of the farming work and told his friend that he was going to be a hunter. He said that by his hunting he hoped to grow richer, as he intended to go from town to town and sell the meat of the animals he killed while Okpa could be looking after the farm. ”

“ I immediately stopped and asked Okabi why the hunters slept in that way in the woods. Okabi laughed, after looking at me quizzically, and then he told me that no man had ever built that shelter. He said that it was made by a kind of man of the woods, called nshiego mbouvé, an animal which had no hair on the top of its head. I really thought Okabi was joking. An animal—a man-monkey—with no hair on the top of his head? a bald-headed ape? It was now my turn to laugh, for I did not believe Okabi's story about the bald-headed animal, though I believed what he said about the shelter in the tree. ”

“ On my way to and from Herschel Island I sledded the very base of the Davis Gilbert, Richardson, and Buckland Mountains. I stopped over night on both journeys with a lot of Eskimo, at that time hunting the Davis Gilbert Mountains and living in what is known as Oakpik (willow camp) , in the extreme western part of the Mackenzie delta, very near the foot of the mountains. Specimens of Ovis dalli (white sheep) and of caribou and fur-bearing animals were plentiful in their camp, but there was no sign of musk-ox. ”

“ Here at Nain, and indeed at all the stations except Okak, where the soil is clay, it is possible, though in winter very troublesome, to dig a grave all the year round. At Okak the coffin must be laid in the snow until returning spring thaws the frozen ground. As already stated, the Eskimoes have no surnames, and their graves show a great repetition of certain Christian names, as Abel, Abia, Zecharias, Thomas, Susannah, Katarina, &c. There is a greater variety on the female side. ”

“ First Itu, then the Creek, then back from Aro, where I had set my heart, to a solitary wilderness of the most forbidding description, where the silence of the bush had never been broken, and here before three months are past there are miles of road, and miles and miles more all surveyed and being worked upon by gangs of men from everywhere, and free labour is being created and accepted as quickly as even a novelist could imagine. And the minutes says "I am to return to Akpap in April!" Okoyong and its people are very dear to me. ”

“ To the north there lay the Okein, a branch of the Binandere; a strong, warlike, and colonizing people steadily pushing their way south, but halted in their southern march by the necessity of defending the land occupied by them, against the attacks of inland raiding tribes. To the south lay the Maisina tribe of Collingwood Bay, a race of pirates, who terrorized the coast as far as Cape Vogel, but were in their turn harried by incursions from the Doriri, a mountain tribe behind them. ”

“ She should have stayed a year, but when the winter came on with grey, cold, weeping skies, she and the bairns missed the sunshine and heat. Ah! and she was always thinking of the work to be done in Africa. To her friends who pressed her to stay, she said, "If ye dinna send me back, I'll swim back. Do you no ken that away out there they're dying without Jesus?" So they set sail and spent Christmas Day at sea.
What a reception they got at Akpap! "Everything will be right now," the people said, "Ma is back." And once more she became the sovereign lady of Okoyong. ”

“ Everywhere I saw fine strong men and vigorous women; and it struck me that the extraordinary plenty and cheapness of nutritive food had quite as much to do with this robustness as climate and constant exercise. So easy, indeed, is it to live in Oki, that men of other coasts, who find existence difficult, emigrate to Oki if they can get a chance to work there, even at less remuneration. An interesting spectacle to me were the vast processions of fishing-vessels which always, weather permitting, began to shoot out to sea a couple of hours before sundown. ”

“ Okpa was a ju-ju man living at Okuni many years ago, and the name of his ju-ju was ’Nda. [9] The old man continually made sacrifices to his ju-ju of goats and fowls and all the young men of the town brought him presents as sacrifices so that they should not get the disease, which is very common throughout the country. ”

“ Two men become friends (okam) by exchanging gifts, consisting of half a pig, and a spear or dao or some such present, a piece of iron invariably forming part of the gift. It is usual for the sons of “friends” to become friends in turn. A man will often possess friends of this kind belonging to different villages, and frequently to a different tribe. When travelling a man will stay in his okam’s house in each village he reaches. He in turn will entertain any of his okams who come to his village. A man may not kill his okam even if he belongs to a hostile village. ”

“ To return to our travellers. The sledge contained five men, one woman, and a child. All were in good spirits, and appearances being much in their favour, they hoped to reach Okkak in safety in two or three days. The track over the frozen sea was in the best possible order, and they went with ease at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. After they had passed the islands in the bay of Nain, they kept at a considerable distance from the coast, both to gain the smoothest part of the ice, and to weather the high rocky promontory of Kiglapeit. ”

“ It is south-east of Kavirondo; and Kilimanjaro can be seen from its shores; in the south-east Okara, Naibash and Baringo seem to have been run by Speke into one Lake. Okara, in the south, is full of large islands, and has but little water between them; that little is encumbered with aquatic vegetation called "Tikatika," on which, as in lakelet Gumadona, a man can walk. Waterlilies and duckweed are not the chief part of this floating mass. In the north Okara is large. Burukineggé land is the boundary between the people of Kavirondo and the Gallahs with camels and horses. ”

“ On the way to Sidi Okba, where caravans are frequent, we met a sad little procession—a few men riding, one or two on foot, leading a camel with the body of a man swathed and bound like a mummy, and lying across the saddle. They came slowly, solemnly, out of the mysterious distance and disappeared into it again. As a soul passes so passed they.
The shrine of Sidi Okba is well worth seeing. The drive across the desert alone repays the weariness caused by jolting and shaking on a stony road. ”

“ The whole village could talk of nothing else but these visits. They all felt so glad to know the Indians were not so wicked as they had believed. Men and women went about with light hearts, for one of the worst dangers of their southern trips to get wood had now been removed. They need no longer tremble at the thought of being massacred in their beds. Everybody talked Indian with enthusiasm—everybody but Okak. He never varied one whit from the stand he had taken in his fine speech: The redskins were enemies—bad men ”

“ The Okaina designs are certainly the most elaborate that I met with, but it is to be noted that in no case do the women attempt to hide, disguise, or paint that portion of the body which most peoples are the first to cover, and which even among these tribes is never exposed by the males. ”