The world of the great forest

A guanionien, as he soared between the great forest and the sun, said to himself: “I am the lord of the air; I am the largest and most powerful of all the eagles of the land. I...

One evening after the guanioniens had returned to their tree to spend the night, and as they stood close together on a branch upon which they had perched, the big guanionien sai...

These ngozos, when young, have very black eyes, but as they grow older a yellow-whitish ring forms itself round the black. Many of them live to be more than a hundred years old.

While the guanioniens were hatching their eggs, the monkeys began to think that it was time to start on their journey to the Land of Plenty, a journey which they took every year...

Among the ngozos that had arrived was the flock which had had a fight with the ndovas. The one whose tail had been plucked, and the other whose feathers had been pulled out betw...

Strange as it may appear, in the night the great forest is more alive with animals than during the day. These night prowlers can only see well when it is dark, and the darker it...

One night a njego, looking at his beautiful spotted skin, his long tail beating his flanks, exclaimed to himself: “Many creatures of the great forest hate and fear me, for I lov...

They watched over their little ones with great care, and when Mamma Njego would go in search of prey, Papa Njego remained behind to take care of the little ones. Now and then he...

Now we will only follow the big njego, having lost track of his mate. He was in a pitiful state, and mad with starvation. It happened one day that he saw a spring where human be...

The forest is inhabited by many species of ants, of many sizes, and of many different colors. Their number is so great that they not only cannot be counted, they cannot even be...

One of the white ants, or nchellelays, said one day to another nchellelay: “Strange indeed is our life. We are unlike the other ants, for they enjoy the light of day, and breath...

The giant nchellelays are so named as they are much larger than all the other species of nchellelays, or white ants. Their bodies are of a whitish yellow color, with very hard b...

One day two porcupines were getting ready to go out of their dark burrow, to seek for food, for they were hungry. They were near the entrance, and listened. Hearing no noise, an...

Darkness had come over the land. An ipi was listening inside of the opening of his burrow. After making sure that there was no danger, he came outside and stood still, waiting f...

One day an izomba (turtle) was walking in the forest, when suddenly she heard a noise, and became suspicious; as the noise came nearer, she drew her head, her four feet, and tai...

One day a big ngooboo, or hippopotamus, looking fondly at his mate, said: “Dear, what a pleasant home we have. Our shoal is surrounded by deep water. We swim and dive around it,...

On the two other shoals were young ngooboos who fell very much in love with her. They would come before her shoal, swim, dive, give snorts or grunts, telling her how much they l...

One day it came to pass that strange-looking apes, called by the human beings of the forest “men of the woods,” came to the same part of the forest to find food. They are called...

Huge male ngina, or gorilla, was standing perfectly still one day in a very dense part of the forest. He was thinking. He looked fierce and ugly. His intensely black face was fu...

One day the big ngina said to his mate: “Dear, do you remember the large field of plantain-trees that we discovered last rainy season? The trees must be big now and bearing frui...

Now the very day the nginas had departed for the plantain field, a number of njokoos, forming a big herd, said among themselves: “At the beginning of the last rainy season, we p...

One evening the old ngina said to his mate: “We have had a hard time of late, and our little one is often hungry. We go to sleep with empty stomachs. Let us go back to that part...

Omembas are very numerous and much dreaded by all the animals and human beings of the great forest. There are many species differing greatly in their colors and the designs of t...

An enormous-sized ombama, about thirty feet long, said to himself one day: “I am so big now that I do not feed on small game. I like to feed on kambis and ncheris. I am so hungr...

A ntoto, with his elongated weasel-like form, stretched his short legs, and, looking at his dirty reddish-brown spotted skin, as he lay in the hollow of his tree, said: “Many ki...

A big yellow and black spotted iboboti, with a body as large as a sparrow’s egg, and with very strong long legs, who was much given to philosophic reflection, said one day to hi...

One day an ashen-gray trap-door spider, while in the dark recesses of his home, mused as follows: “What great intelligence I have been gifted with! I can make a burrow, and clos...

One night a large gray house spider said to himself: “My kin lives in the huts of people. It will soon be daylight, and I must find a place where I can hide myself during the da...

A wasp, putting her head out of one of the windows of her nest which was hanging on the branch of a tree in the forest on the border of a prairie, exclaimed one day:—

In the midst of the dark foliage of a group of trees stood two pale yellow-faced nkengos (men of the woods). Strange, indeed, looked their yellow, wrinkled, parchment-like faces...

One day a tiny baby was born to the old nkengos. He was yellow in the face like his parents; his elongated little hands, with their slender fingers, and his small feet, with the...

A troop of monkeys were looking down one day from the top of a tree at a lagoon studded with mud banks, and saw a large number of ngandos basking in the sun. They laughed at the...

A big ogata, over seven feet long, was looking one day from the dark opening of his burrow built on a declivity of a hill by a large river, watching for prey. The creature was u...

A herd of beautiful kambis with long spiral horns were one day running through the forest for their lives, and never stopped until they had gone many miles, and thought themselv...

An oshingi with its beautiful, spotted, leopard-like skin, and pretty, long-ringed tail, was cosily sleeping one day in the deep and dark hollow of a tree. When the day had pass...

One day there was a great uproar among the insects and butterflies. They had just escaped being devoured by the bashikouay ants and the birds which had followed them. They calle...

Several herds of njokoos that had been hunted mercilessly by men in the immense shrub-covered country in which they had lived all their lives, encountered one another one day. W...

The strangers, after they had left the forest njokoos, came to a large river, and were delighted not only because they could bathe in it, but because they saw the sunshine, whic...

Evil days were now coming for the njokoos. During all the years they had been in the forest they had escaped many dangers, but henceforth they were to encounter great peril and...

A njokoo and her baby, a few days old, were by themselves in the great forest. Mamma Njokoo had left the herd to which she belonged, for her little one was too small and could n...

A large pack of mboyos with long grayish hair, darker on the back, and with straight ears (they might have been taken for wolves or big hairy dogs at home), were restless. Their...

As the dry season was approaching, many of the fish of the sea said to one another: “It is time for us to go to the rivers of the great forest where we were born, for the dry se...

One day a kongoo, with white body and black wings, looking at his mate, who was of a dark grayish color, said to her: “It is about time for us to go to the Eliva Monon (the rive...

Millions upon millions of bashikouay ants inhabit their subterranean dwellings; but no one to this day has been able to see how they live there, and what their home is like.

A panic had seized them all, for the bright sunny day seemed to be gradually turning into twilight, the forerunner of the night. They said, “Why is this sudden ending of light?”...

Perched on a limb of a tree by the bank of a river was a kingfisher of a beautiful deep blue color. His head was ornamented with a crest of long blue feathers with white rings....

Strange-looking small human beings, almost as singular as the men of the woods, were one day talking together near some diminutive houses, looking somewhat like beehives covered...

Before closing this volume I will give the story of two remarkable creatures which belonged to the “World of the Great Forest,” a nshiego and a nkengo. These two were made capti...