Library of Cryptozoology

Desert of Banas, Sunday 26 to Monday 27 February ... A very strange animal strikes me: its form, stature, and hair are those of the black bear, and it walks upright on its hind legs.

There is a similar looking animal [to a tapir] in the lagoons of West Africa, below the Congo. I saw one or two, but failed to bag them.

The natives speak of it in the Great Lakes region, to Katanga, in the Ueles, in Bangala, and even to Kasai. In this last region, they call it the "sanki"; when they describe it, the blacks tell you: "It exceeds the tallest trees, the body is like that of a formidable ox, with a large tail; its neck is immense and ends in a rather small head on which it has a large crest like a coxcomb; it dwells in the swamps and swims at a very great speed" ... In Kasai, I even heard of a native chief who jealously guarded the tail of a brontosaur... One of our old colonials, who has died recently, a pensive minded man not in the habit of raconteuring, firmly believed in the existence of a fabulous animal and claimed to have seen it twice, once at Lake Tanganyika, and once again at Bangala, where the Congo is at its widest! "I was able to follow it through binoculars. The animal swam with a rapidity which is not characteristic of any other animal; it threw up large sprays. At

Kayeke (legendary primate) Legendary primate, which would exist in Zaire, and which, so the natives say, would be an anthropoid, similar in everything to man, since it also has a language of its own. Tambwe ya meia (water lion) Legendary animal, of great dimensions, whose snout is read, like a mukiche mask. It is so big that it can be mistaken for the trunk of a leafy tree. Zuje (legendary animal) Legendary animal, like a saurian, of monstrous dimensions. It is so long that, if it crosses a river, where it generally lives, it can serve as a bridge and be mistaken for the trunk of a large, leafy tree. Memories of prehistoric animals like the brontosaur, perhaps.