9. Nobody knows how many gorillas are left among the volcanoes or whether they are decreasing or increasing, but the numbers are very small, probably something between fifty and two hundred. Nowadays they are protected after a fashion and no one may legally shoot or capture them, but this still does not prevent the local tribesmen from killing them. If the gorillas spoil their crops (and the crops are being pushed steadily further up the mountainsides), or loot the honey from the wild beehives which the tribesmen have placed in the trees, then spearmen track them to their lairs and take reprisals. Nine gorillas were butchered in this way just before I myself arrived in the area earlier this year.
     10. It was, I must confess, only by chance that I found myself there at all, for I had been heading in a quite different direction from Tanganyika northwards to the valley of the upper Nile. I knew something about the gorilla sanctuary among the volcanoes, but had never planned to go there since the animals have grown very timid and difficult to get at, and few people ever manage to see them. It happened, however, that our safari (a modest one consisting of myself, a companion and a Swahili boy, all travelling together with our food and bedding in a single truck) had arrived at Kabale, the southernmost town in Uganda, and here we had decided to rest in comfortable surroundings for a couple of days.