"He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between his teeth.... This animal's savage nature is very well shown by the implacable desperation of a young one that was brought here. It was taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were used to tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it died."

Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant-driving stories, and says that no well-informed natives believe them. They are tales told to children.

I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but, as it appears to me, less carefully weighed and sifted, from the letters of MM. Franquet and Gautier Laboullay, appended to the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have already cited.

Bearing in mind what is known regarding the Orang and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be justly open to criticism on 'a priori' grounds. The Gibbons, as we have seen, readily assume the erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted by its organization for that attitude than are the Gibbons: if the laryngeal pouches of the Gibbons, as is very likely, are important in giving volume to a voice which can be heard for half a league, the Gorilla, which has similar sacs, more largely developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a Gibbon, may well be audible for twice that distance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the Gibbons and Chimpanzees with their teeth, the Gorilla may, probably enough, do either or both; nor is there anything to be said against either Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is proved that the Orang-Utan habitually performs that feat.

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old, before the world it is not a little surprising that the assertions of a recent traveller, who, so far as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little more than repeat, on his own authority, the statements of Savage and of Ford, should have met with so much and such bitter opposition. If subtraction be made of what was known before, the sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has affirmed as a matter of his own observation respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his chest with his fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, or very much worth disputing about, in this statement.

With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the 'nschiego mbouve', which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar note, resembling "Kooloo."

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of leaves, and the common Chimpanzee, according to that eminently trustworthy observer Dr. Savage, makes a sound like "Whoo-whoo,"—the grounds of the summary repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters have been met are not obvious.

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's work, then, it is not because I discern any inherent improbability in his assertions respecting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion on his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject whatsoever.

It may be truth, but it is not evidence.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: REGNUM CONGO: hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI AFRICANI QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Francofurti, MDXCVIII.]

[Footnote 2: "Except this that their legges had no calves."—(Ed. 1626.) And in a marginal note, "These great apes are called Pongo's."]

[Footnote 3: 'Purchas' note'.—Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the line.]

[Footnote 4: Purchas' marginal note, p. 982:—"The Pongo a giant ape. He told me in conference with him, that one of these pongoes tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they surprise at unawares, except they look on them; which he avoyded. He said their highth was like a man's, but their bignesse twice as great. I saw the negro boy. What the other monster should be he hath forgotten to relate; and these papers came to my hand since his death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned."]

[Footnote 5: 'Archives du Museum', tome x.]

[Footnote 6: I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the 'Pygmie.' Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, perhaps its most remarkable ornament.]

[Footnote 7: "Mandrill" seems to signify a "man-like ape," the word "Drill" or "Dril" having been anciently employed in England to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of Blount's "Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue...very useful for all such as desire to understand what they read," published in 1681, I find, "Dril—a stone-cutter's tool wherewith he bores little holes in marble, etc. Also a large overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called." "Drill" is used in the same sense in Charleton's "Onomasticon Zoicon," 1668. The singular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a probable one.]

[Footnote 8: 'Histoire Naturelle', Suppl. tome 7eme, 1789.]

[Footnote 9: Camper, 'Oeuvres', i. p. 56.]

[Footnote 10: Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel. Derde Druk. 1826.]

[Footnote 11: "Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794."]

[Footnote 12: See Blumenbach, 'Abbildungen Naturhistorichen Gegenstande, No. 12, 1810; and Tilesius, Naturhistoriche Fruchte der ersten Kaiserlich-Russischen Erdumsegelung', p. 115, 1813.]

[Footnote 13: Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether there be more than one species of Orang.]

[Footnote 14: See "Observations on the external characters and habits of the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its organization by Jeffries Wyman, M.D.," 'Boston Journal of Natural History', vol. iv., 1843-4; and "External characters, habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same authors, 'ibid'., vol. v., 1847.]

[Footnote 15: Man and Monkies', p. 423.]

[Footnote 16:'Wanderings in New South Wales', vol. ii. chap. viii., 1834.]

[Footnote 17: 'Boston Journal of Natural History', vol. i., 1834.]

[Footnote 18: The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, when standing upright, 4 ft.; but he mentions having just received news of the capture of an Orang 5 ft. 3 in. high. Schlegel and Juller say that their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands "el"; and from the crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the circumference of the body being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high, when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his 'Life in the Forests of the Far East', tells us of an Orang of "5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, however, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself.]

[Footnote 19: See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant "Orang-utan," in the 'Annals of Natural History' for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.]

[Footnote 20: "They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth."—Sir James Brooke, in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society', 1841.]

[Footnote 21: Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang almost exactly corresponds with this.]

[Footnote 22: Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published in the proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says:—"On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark that they are as dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the 'Pappan' could not be otherwise than formidable, and one unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten on the face, whilst the animal finally beat off his pursuers and escaped." Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several times observed them throwing down branches when pursued. "It is true he does not throw them 'at' a person, but casts them down vertically; for it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mischief."—"On the Habits of the Orang-Utan," 'Annals of Nat. History, 1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted above (p. 210).]

[Footnote 23: On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, 'Annals of Natural History', 1856.]

[Footnote 24: Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. 'Boston Journal of Natural History', 1847.]

THE END