Gorillas in the Mist

by Farley Mowat

  Her family was outraged by the size and nature of the debt she had incurred. Even her maternal aunt and uncle, Flossie and Bert Chapin, who had sometimes helped her financially during her university days, were scandalized. “It’s madness,” they told her. “If you had any sense, you’d call the whole thing off!”

  Dian held adamantly to her course but tried to soothe her relatives by assuring them she would recoup the money by writing about her experiences and selling photographs and even motion pictures.

  She read everything about Africa she could find. She was particularly impressed by American zoologist George Schaller’s book, The Year of the Gorilla, in which he described his pioneering study of the rare mountain gorillas in the Belgian Congo. The subject offered such exciting journalistic possibilities that Dian decided to extend her safari from four to six weeks in order to visit the Virunga volcanoes in central Africa, the home of the mountain gorilla.

  During the preparations for her journey she had continued her correspondence with Franz Forrester and had agreed to visit his family estate. “I have my riding attire all cleaned and ready, for riding is a big thing at Pookie’s home,” she told her mother. She also packed hiking boots and an army surplus poncho, together with a box of purloined Howard Johnson sugar cubes and American Airlines soap bars to hand out to the natives.

  Dian had suffered from allergies all her life and was worried about how much they might trouble her in Africa. “About three Saturdays ago I ate a tiny, insignificant plum,” she wrote home, “just to test if my allergies were under control. Well, within an hour my eyes swelled shut, I had a temperature of 102°, I threw up, and my throat swelled shut. I was really frightened.” She was also subject to debilitating asthma attacks and was a frequent victim of pneumonia. Just after graduation from college she saw an X-ray of her lungs, which were so scarred that she described the photos as looking like a street map of Los Angeles superimposed on a street map of New York. An essential part of Dian’s safari luggage consisted of a medicine chest weighing forty-four pounds.

  She had her immunization shots.

  I have been on the Camille list again due to all the inoculations. They seem to be giving me the diseases instead of preventing them. I feel like a character out of an Ernest Hemingway novel, what with the fever-delirium-chills-recovery sequence.

  A month before her scheduled departure for Africa she contracted pneumonia again. She made the best of it. “Except for the expense,” she told her mother, “this is the best going-away present, since now I can have a week off from work just to rest!”

  Her itinerary included Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, the Belgian Congo, and Southern Rhodesia. She departed September 26, 1963, with high expectations—and sixty pounds of excess luggage. During the descent into Cairo, where her plane would refuel for the long leap south to Nairobi, she became feverish and nauseated. The next thirty-six hours were a blur: crowds and noise, hot-water bottles, and half-digested meals in seedy hotels. But the symptoms vanished as mysteriously as they had occurred, and three days later she was traveling on a bus from Nairobi to Treetops, the elite up-country lodge of the Mount Kenya Safari Club, where she was to meet her white hunter guide. Pending his arrival, there were other fascinating Africans to meet.

  Bristly warthogs and baboons everywhere. Buffalo, then rhino, but too dark to photograph. Sykes monkey, Colobus monkey, crested cranes …

  Exhaustion felled her the day after her arrival at the luxurious lodge, and she slept until seven in the evening. Then she freshened up, dressed, and put her long black hair up in a French roll. Striving to appear sophisticated, she added earrings and a flashy ring her mother had given her.

  With the hope that she looked glamorous enough for the posh surroundings, she swept out onto the patio where she was met by actor William Holden, owner of Treetops. He invited her to his table for dinner, together with a Texas oil tycoon, a millionaire big game hunter from Scotland, and two white hunters. Her eyes grew luminous with excitement as she listened to these “old hands” talk, but she herself said little. “These people really know the Africa I’ve so far only dreamed about.”

  Two nights later John Alexander, her own mail-order white hunter, arrived at Treetops with two other clients in tow. He was so preoccupied with them that he hardly gave Dian a second glance. She had imagined a close association with an epic African hero—and her Great White, as she came to call him, was too busy to talk to her until the next day. She went to bed sick with dysentery and disappointment, but woke early in the morning and got gamely into her safari clothes, ready to go when her guide arrived. As the hours passed and he did not appear, she was virtually in tears—of rage.

  I’m disgusted with him! Ten-thirty already! I wish to hell he’d get here.

  John Alexander eventually picked her up in his Land Rover and they drove into Nairobi, then continued south to the northern rim of Tanzania’s Serengeti Plain.

  Once they were on the move, Dian relaxed a little and wondered whether her first assessment of her companion had been too harsh. Certainly he knew the animals she so much wanted to see and where to find them. As the days wore on, she worked her cameras mercilessly, begrudging every wasted opportunity to see and photograph more creatures.

  “Shall we stop for a rest and lunch?” John Alexander asked wearily one day at noon.

  “No! I’m just getting started, so let’s not dawdle.”

  By October 3 they had reached Tsavo in the southeast corner of Kenya, where Dian spent the morning photographing elephant, baby rhino, and buffalo. That night she again suffered from dysentery and vomiting and awoke absolutely drained. Nevertheless, she insisted they move on at dawn and had to curb her temper as she waited for her increasingly lethargic guide.

  Alexander cranky, but who cares! Up at 6:30 and out. Buffalo pictures mainly. No lion. Breakfast watching baboons, and he eats like one!

  A few days later they drove into the Ngorongoro Crater, a famous landmark in Masai country in northern Tanzania. Since childhood Dian had suffered from a paralyzing fear of heights, and as the road into the crater dropped precipitously, she cowered on the floor of the Land Rover with her head covered, emerging only when they reached level ground.

  The floor of the crater is a vast plain with some swamp area and a small lake. The Masai graze their cattle there and the warriors still kill lion in spite of the government’s efforts. The flies literally obscure the babies’ faces. The moment we stepped out of the truck, the flies and people descended on us-but spray took care of the flies and shillings took care of the people. No picture can be taken for less than a shilling. I also have a huge bag of beads-really beautiful, gaudy things. Their eyes would light up, they would whistle, ooh and aah and grab, but I still couldn’t save a shilling.

  If the Masai were something of a disappointment, so was her guide.

  Saw five male lion, herds of wildebeest, zebra, impala … Charged by one rhino, but Alexander wouldn’t hold the car still long enough for a decent cine of the charge, so most of that twenty feet of film will be a series of bumps and sky. I’m not pleased with him, but I guess I should be grateful that he’s not a drinker, which makes him a rarity in these parts. He’s reliable as far as driving, finding game, etc., and he won’t risk any dangers. But God, he is a bore and I feel as though a huge tsetse fly were hovering over my head all the time I’m with him. He’s very, very, very, very British, and I have a new term for them now-White Masai: arrogant, proud, and completely lacking in substance. A native only has to sneeze in front of them and they are off on a rampage of muttering, vengefulness, and oaths.

  Oh, but I really find this Alexander hateful. Yesterday I was tempted to abandon him and his Land Rover when he claimed some African had given him a bit of lip. It spoiled a whole afternoon of game-viewing for me. But on the other hand, when this jerk wants something, he’s as obsequious as a lamb. He may be tall and handsome, but to me he’s ugly.

  After a week on the road Dian put her camera gear in top order
and made herself as presentable as possible for a visit to Olduvai Gorge on the southern border of Serengeti National Park. She was hoping to meet Dr. Louis Leakey, the celebrated paleoanthropologist.

  Leakey had been uncovering hominid fossils in Olduvai Gorge since the early 1930s. His discoveries had clearly established that man had been around far longer than anyone had suspected, and that his roots were in East Africa, not Asia, as had previously been believed. His interpretation of the place these fossils held in man’s family tree had made Leakey a figure of enormous controversy among his scientific brethren; but the public loved him for his ability to make an obscure branch of knowledge exciting and accessible. By the 1960s he had reached such a pinnacle of fame that it was a major triumph for any journalist to obtain an interview with him.

  Dian had decided to take a chance on finding Leakey at his camp, although the likelihood that he would be there was remote. He was sixty years old now and preferred to be in Nairobi, far from the heat and harshness of the gorge.

  Seen through a curtain of shimmering heat, the Olduvai field camp looked deserted and unimpressive—a few drab tin huts and some dusty Land Rovers and small trucks. However, as Dian and Alexander bounced into the parking area trailing a thick cloud of red dust, several natives and a noisy pair of dalmatians appeared out of nowhere; and when a wildebeest with a Sykes monkey riding on its back trotted by, Dian recognized them as some of Leakey’s famous pets.

  Then, with delight, she spotted Leakey himself striding toward her, white hair blowing in the wind, patches on the knees of his khaki boiler suit, two days’ growth of salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin.

  Always one to rise to the occasion when a good-looking woman was at its center, Leakey grasped Dian’s hand in both of his, and she responded with such warm and prolonged pressure, and such a look of frank admiration, that he became as affable with this intruder as if she had been a welcome and invited guest.

  He questioned her about where she had been; then about what she still wished to see and do. “I particularly want to go to the Virunga volcano country to meet the mountain gorillas,” she told him.

  Leakey eyed his dusty, gangly, yet attractive visitor speculatively. “Are you merely interested in gorillas as a spectator or as a journalist?”

  “Much more than that, Dr. Leakey,” she responded earnestly. “Someday I plan to come here to live and work.”

  “Indeed. Well, the study of the great apes is a neglected and tremendously significant field, you know. It could shed a great deal of light on the evolution and behavior of our own early, apelike ancestors…. But now you’re here. Would you like to tour the dig? Can’t go myself, but one of the men will take you around.”

  “That would be wonderful, but could I possibly take your photo first? You know, the best thing about coming on this safari is my good fortune in meeting you.” Dian gave Leakey the smile of a woman who knows she is being admired.

  Accompanied by a sullen Alexander, who had been totally ignored during this interchange, Dian followed the guide to view and photograph the age-old burials. Then they moved on to a current dig where workers were carefully uncovering the fossilized skull of a giant giraffe. While maneuvering to get a picture, Dian slipped and wrenched her ankle. Grimacing with pain, she muttered to Alexander, who was close behind, “Oh, shit! I think I’m going to vomit!”

  He gave her a look of distaste, taking due note of her return to the irritable Dian Fossey he had come to know so well, now that she was out of Leakey’s presence.

  “Well, how about carrying me back?” she demanded. “I can’t get up that hill on only one foot!”

  When they returned to the camp compound, Leakey showed great solicitude, insisting on personally examining and bandaging Dian’s ankle, while his wife, Mary, fetched her a cold and soothing drink. As they parted, Leakey put his hand lightly on Dian’s shoulder—a somewhat awkward gesture since he had to reach up to her.

  “Go and see your gorillas if you can manage that ankle. I think you will. You strike me as that sort of person. And keep in touch.”

  Uncertain whether he meant this last remark or was simply being polite, Dian was nevertheless in psychic ecstasy—if in considerable physical pain—as Alexander gunned the Land Rover back up the dusty road.

  Through the next four days Dian and John Alexander worked their way northward, skirting Lake Victoria, then on through lush jungle toward Kampala in Uganda. Continual disagreements between them sometimes left Dian shaking with fury. They argued about everything, but mostly about the progress of the safari and whether Alexander was earning his daily fee. He was extremely reluctant to take her into the Congo to see the gorillas.

  “You really try to get away with murder,” she told him angrily.

  “I’m here to see as much as I can, and I’m not leaving until I see the Virunga gorillas.”

  “It’s not that easy,” he argued stubbornly. “There are political problems in the Congo, and my Land Rover and equipment have to have extra insurance. Are you prepared to pay for that?”

  “I told you I’ve run out of money,” she retorted furiously. Alexander grunted and speeded up the truck.

  This blasted white hunter has not even made arrangements to get a visa for the Congo, and he keeps coming up with all kinds of new expenditures-the cost of his visa, repair on the Land Rover, gifts for mountain guides, and now extra insurance! He’s going to get a blank check-which is all I have left!

  Her ankle was slowly improving but she still couldn’t get a boot on that foot, so she lived in her shoes.

  I’m grateful to have left Kenya and Tanganyika behind because that also means the end of the British for a while. There are few Europeans in Uganda, and the Congo has only French and Belgians, far more broad-minded than the English. There are so many native tribes around Lake Victoria that it’s impossible to distinguish one from the others. Indians are thrown in to boot, and hundreds of different types of half-breeds. The costumes are as mixed up as the skin colors-and they are all staring at me! I found two little Masai boys on the plains who were all dyed with red ocher. They were wonderful-as shy as the animals of being photographed, but I snapped away.

  On the morning of October 15 the pair arrived at the village of Kisoro and its Traveler’s Rest hotel, near the Uganda-Congo-Rwanda border. By now they were hardly exchanging a word, but Dian was glad of the silence for it enabled her to absorb the African scene without distraction.

  The Traveler’s Rest sits within hiking distance of mountain gorilla country on the western slopes of the Virunga volcano chain, and during the eight years Walter Baumgartel had been the hotel’s proprietor, he had become something of an expert on these elusive animals. A stop at the Traveler’s Rest was almost mandatory for anyone wanting news of the gorillas. On this occasion Baumgartel informed Dian and Alexander that the world-renowned wildlife photographers Joan and Alan Root were currently on Mt. Mikeno, in the Congo sect ion of the Virungas, where they had been filming gorillas for some weeks. Reluctantly the white hunter agreed to try and reach them.

  They crossed into the Congo and a day later reached the jumping-off point for the climb to Mt. Mikeno. By late that evening they had completed the ascent.

  We are now at a base camp high up on the Virungas. The Great White and I climbed Mt. Mikeno from a small village of thatched huts and hundreds of blacks at the base of the mountain. After hours of haggling over loads and money, we hired eleven porters and two guides. The altitude here is 11,400 feet, so you can imagine what happened to my lungs on the way up. It took six and a half hours to get to this camp and I thought I would die. My rib cage was bursting, my legs were creaking and in agony, and my ankle felt as though a crocodile had his jaws around it. How those porters do it, each carrying around thirty pounds on his head, I’ll never know.

  Halfway up, the leading guide was charged by a gorilla! All I could hear were the screams of the animal, and by the time we got to the spot, the gorilla was probably a mile away. I was extremely dis
appointed not to see him, and even more so when they all described the incident in such fast Swahili I couldn’t understand a word. Of course, the Great White is reluctant to translate!

  Yesterday we started out early to track the family of gorillas we had heard on the way up. We found fresh tracks-much bigger than my foot. And fresh nests and wild celery croppings. But after six hours of hacking our way through dense jungle, I had to give up. There’s little water available in volcanic mountains, and my tongue was literally stuck to the roof of my mouth and my lips were sealed together from thirst. My right ankle was all but useless, and my whole body was one big sheet of pain.

  When I reached camp, our cookboy, Manual, came running, looked at me, and started screaming for help. I didn’t realize what I must have looked like—swollen lips, bloodshot eyes, phlegm running from my mouth. He brought me water, made tea, and took off my shoes. I collapsed.

  A few days later Alan Root and his wife, Joan, who were living in a rickety cabin nearby and resented our invasion, took pity on me and asked if I wanted to go out with them. He seems like a gentle, soft-spoken person, but I feel a little uncomfortable with him. He looks sort of studious in his gray, plastic-rimmed glasses, and he’s probably stooped from bending over to get just the right shot. It’s obvious he’s confident in his photography and knows he’s one of the best in the world. And his wife, Joan, seems made in his image. They handled the terrain like pros, while I panted along behind.

  The terrain was unbelievable, almost straight up, and we had to hang on to vines to get along or go on hands and knees. For a long time we found no sign of gorillas, but then we came upon a bedding place where thirteen of them had slept the night before.