but of all large monkeys-of women being run away with. At a village on the right-hand bank of the Fernand Vaz, the women are said to have been frequently chased by gorillas as they went to fill their calabashes at the spring. A woman was brought to me who stated that she herself had excited the passion of a gorilla, and had hardly escaped him. In all this, however, there is nothing wonderful. We know that monkeys are susceptible animals. But when one hears of a woman being carried off to the woods and living among apes in a semi-domesticated state, we are justified in thorough disbelief.

The chimpanzee is said to be more intelligent than the gorilla. If you throw a spear at the njina, say the natives, he will spring out of its way; but if you throw one at the nchigo, he will catch it in his hand and throw it back at you. In the interior country of Sierra Leone it is commonly reported that the natives tame the chimpanzee, and teach him to pound maize in mortars, and to fetch water from the spring. This is as badly authenticated as that rumor of the people in the Lower Soudan who have tame giraffes; but it is not very improbable. Monkeys were tamed by the ancient Egyptians, and taught to pick fruit off the trees, and to do other kinds of work. In some parts of Abyssinia they are still taught to hold torches at feasts. The chimpanzee, it is known, is very docile and intelligent in a state of captivity.

When I asked if the gorilla made a noise like a drum by beating on his breast, I was told "No;" but that the chimpanzees had drums, and often came to beat them near the village. As may be supposed, I did not pay much attention to this story; but I afterward mentioned it to Etia, who replied that to say the chimpanzees had a drum like theirs was not true; but it was true that the chimpanzee had a drum, and that he beat it with his feet. I said that I should like to see this drum. He took me into the wood, and showed me a large tree called oreva. It was hollow, for I could see where a porcupine had burrowed in it. This was the chimpanzee's drum, he said; and, catching hold of two young trees, he swung himself in the air, and beat with the soles of his feet against the tree. I must confess that I heard no sound like that of a drum; but he told me that the chimpanzee did it "so strong-strong-strong" that one could hear a booming noise ever so far away.*

*It has been said on good authority that they occasionally assemble in large numbers in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so

The third variety of ape in Equatorial Africa is the koolookamba. M. Du Chaillu has asserted that it gives the cry of kooloo, whence its name. When I asked the hunters to imitate its cry, they made a noise like ee-ee !-a-a-a! I asked them if they could tell me any thing in its way of life which made it dif ferent from the chimpanzee and gorilla. They said that there was only one thing which it did different from them. If the mother had its young one in its arms, and saw a little string of red ants crossing the path (which has really a very pretty appearance), she would think that they were playthings for the child, and she would put it in the midst. When the child cried, she would take it up again. Then the drivers, as these ants are called, would begin to bite her; she would think it was the child, and would dash it down upon the ground, so that sometimes it was killed then and there.

In the gorilla dance which I saw performed at Ngumbi, and in which the dancers imitated various attitudes of the gorilla, two of these struck me as peculiar. One of them was a sitting posture, with the legs straight out and the arms upon them; the other was also a sitting attitude, with the arms folded over one another on the forehead.

I have not been able to discover that the habits of the gorilla differ in any material respect from those of the chimpanzee. Both animals build nests; both go usually on all-fours; both attack by biting; both change their dwelling-places in search of food and solitude; both, without being gregarious, sometimes seem to assemble in large numbers, as Dr. Savage was told respecting the chimpanzee at Cape Palmas, and I respecting the gorilla at Fernand Vaz. A white man has never yet bagged a gorilla or a chimpanzee. The wariness of these animals, the uncertainty of their haunts, and the jealousy of native hunters, will always render ape-shooting a difficult task, and one which offers more interest to the naturalist than to the sportsman.

At present we possess only the evidence of native hunters, as collected by Messrs. Wilson, Savage, Ford, and myself.

From

engaged, hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities.-Observations of the External Character and Habits of the Troglodytes Niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., Boston. "Journal of Natural History," vol. iv. 1843-4.

* Biting is their principal act of defense. I have seen one man who had thus been severely wounded in the feet.

this, which I have just placed at some length before the reader, it will be seen that the great apes of Equatorial Africa differ but little in their habits from one another. Nor does it seem that they differ much from the orang-outang, which also, as is well known, builds a nest to sleep in, goes on all-fours, sits with its head bowed, loves the densest and most sombre of the forests, and when wounded, will rush raging upon its enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant flight, as they are sure to be killed if caught.