had succeeded in getting the net over the animal and then the animal had succeeded in tearing his way out of the net and killing the man. Whether this story was true or not I do not know. Before I left Africa, in 1911, I heard that a man named Grauer had gone into the country where I had intended going and that he had come out through Nairobi with eight gorilla skins. Altogether there came to me considerable corroboration of my belief that there were gorillas in the Lake Kivu country of Central Africa, and my intention to go there and collect the material for a group remained constant although, through the period of the war, inactive.
It came to life in 1920. One night I was expounding the beauties of Africa to my friend Mr. H. E. Bradley when he turned to Mrs. Bradley and said, "Let's take him at his word and spend a year in Africa." Mrs. Bradley asked what they should do with their five-year-old daughter. Nothing pleased me more than to assure them that an expedition to Central Africa was entirely safe and practicable for women and children, and so an expedition was agreed upon. Years before, when she was a child, I had promised the niece of a friend of mine, Miss Martha Miller, to take her to Africa. I had never been allowed to forget the promise. Now the time for fulfillment had come. So the party was formed of these two ladies, Bradley, the five-year-old child, Miss Priscilla Hall, and me. Miss Hall had agreed to look after the youngster while the others hunted. Not long afterward it was definitely decided that the expedi-
