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CHAPTER 6 (e, continued)

Though without communication 
Spoken in symbolic language 
Their gorilla hosts perceived it
And made ready for the parting
 
In a solemn mood of sadness
All the hominids assembled
In the clearing in the jungle 
Where they had repulsed the python
 
Several of the leading females 
Stepped up to the human family 
Brought to Han a towering armful
Gifts of ripening fruits and berries
 
Kwona then herself came forward 
To the silverback gorilla 
Handed him two wooden carvings
One gorilla, one a human
 
In their likeness. Her twin children 
Had produced these wooden sculptures 
With their father Han's assistance;
And the boomerang was given
 
Also as a leaving present
All the male gorillas watching 
Murmured in appreciation;
Then the human guests departed
 
Hiking downhill through the jungle 
Keeping on a northward bearing
With the hope that in a few days
They would leave behind the forest 
 
Whose close enveloping greenness
Was unnerving and oppressive 
To the people of the coastland
Used to openness and sunlight 
 

CHAPTER 7 (a)

Ipiki
 
Many days still lay before them
Navigating hills and valleys
Of this wide and close-knit forest;
On they journeyed till the evening 
 
Halting as the shadows lengthened 
Han and Matto set to working 
To erect a simple tree-house
In the way of the gorillas 
 
While the ladies looked for supper
Shiny tubers were uprooted 
Bulbous rhizomes from the dark soil,  
With some tender leafy plantains
 
These were baked above the embers
Of a fire that Han had kindled
Then came Rosy to the fireside 
Bringing her own contribution 
 
Held between now well grown canines
By the head, a snake was coiling
Weakly as the life ebbed from it;
Han dispatched it with his hatchet
 
Thus they dined on fulsome menu
Then ascending to the tree-house
After some short conversation 
All slept peacefully till morning 
 
On awaking Han was startled 
By the strangest sight above him
All around the leafy foliage
Changed from green to black in colour!
 
Could this be a dreamed illusion?
Han was thinking; then a movement
Crossed the corner of his vision
As a snake crept through the branches
 
"Am I seeing" Han thought darkly
"Ghost return of last night's supper!?"
And the serpent, at that instant 
Sprang into the leafy blackness
 
Han's half-sleeping baleful visions
Were dispelled by sudden movement 
All the air was filled with bat-wings
Of the thousand tiny creatures
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