suspiciously to the bush, said, 'Massa, baboo live there,' and in a few minutes the woods appeared alive with them. My guide showed evident fear, and entreated me not to proceed any farther." Our brave lieutenant did proceed farther, however, and secured a young "baboo," though not without first shooting its mother.

M. du Chaillu, about whom we shall have more to say by-andby, puts aside the accounts which the natives give of the habits of the Chimpanzee as mere idle stories, and asserts that though the young consort in companies, the adults are always found alone or in pairs; that the animal builds no sort of shelter for itself, and that it is never known to attack man, He makes known to us, however, two new Apes, which, according to Professor Owen, are to be regarded as varieties of the Chimpanzeeone the Kooloo-Kamba, so called from the peculiar cry which it utters; and the other, the Nshiego-mbouvé, a bald-headed fellow which constructs for itself an umbrella-shaped shelter, of about ten feet in diameter, high up on the lofty trees which it inhabits. Of the Kooloo-Kamba only a single specimen was seen, but the Nshiego-mbouvé afforded M. du. Chaillu better opportunities for the observation of its habits, and he gives a very interesting account of a young specimen which he captured, and which he preserved alive for five months.

The adult Chimpanzee, as may readily be supposed, is no easy matter to capture alive; but young individuals have frequently been obtained and exhibited in this country, though none of them, unfortunately, have reached maturity. We must still look to some Liverpool captain, trading to the Gold Coast, for a full-grown specimen.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GORILLA.

"On the third day, having sailed from thence, passing the streams of fire, we came to a bay called the Horn of the South. In the recess was an island like the first, having a lake, and in this there was another island full of wild men. But much the greater part of them were women, with hairy bodies, whom the interpreters called gorillas. . . . But pursuing them, we were not able to take the men: they all escaped from us by their great agility, being cremnobates (that is to say, climbing precipitous rocks and trees), and defending themselves by throwing stones at us. We took three women, who bit and tore those who caught them, and were unwilling to follow. We were obliged, therefore, to kill them, and took their skins off, which skins were brought to Carthage, for we did not navigate farther, provisions becoming scarce."

THE Gorilla is the lion of the day. It may be that long before these pages find their way into the hands of the reader, the interest in the monster will in a great degree have abated, and he may have taken his place amongst the Monkey tribe as a huge ferocious Ape and nothing more. But at the time of this present writing, he is pre-eminently the lion of the day, and has more than a lion's share of public attention-a subject of sharp contention amongst learned zoologists, and of wonderment to the public at large. He re-appears week by week in the pages of "Punch;" is the theme of nobody knows how many popular songs; is lectured on by Mr. Spurgeon in his huge Tabernacle; and draws crowds of eager sight-seers to inspect his stuffed skin in the British Museum.

Never before, perhaps, has the mere description of the habits of an animal created so marked a sensation. The Hippopotamus and Ant-eater fevers which prevailed some years ago were produced by the actual presence amongst us of the living animals themselves: but, in this instance, with the exception of a few skulls and stuffed skins, with which zoologists have been familiar for some years past, there is nothing to account for the

278

THE GORILLA COUNTRY.

sudden enthusiasm, but the simple narrative* of one who has seen and hunted the monster in his native wilds. It is true, the same narrative opens up to us a portion of the African continent which until now has been covered with the veil of mystery; and that the region which is thus made known, is alike interesting from the unsuspected nature of its physical features, and the singular character of some of its human inhabitants, who while skilled in some of the arts of civilized life, are at the same time real unmistakeable cannibals, who make no secret of their partiality for human flesh. But these things have contributed to the prevailing interest only as the accessories of the picture. They enable us to see the "Gorilla country ;" and the one thing that stands out in the fore-front, arresting and riveting the attention of all, is the figure of this huge and terrible man-like Ape, beating his breast with rage, and scowling horrible defiance at the white man, who now for the first time has penetrated to his dismal haunts.

To the student of Natural History there is a peculiar interest attaching to the Gorilla, from the circumstance that it is an animal which has been recently recovered to science, so to speak, after having been rejected as a mere creation of the fancy.

In the narratives of several of our older travellers there are frequent references to a large and powerful man-like Ape inhabiting the dense forests of Western Africa, which up to the time of Cuvier were generally regarded as indicating the existence in that region of a species distinct from the Chimpanzee, and of a much more formidable character. But the illustrious author of the Regne Animal almost contemptuously puts aside the notion of this second and larger species of Ape, and assumes that all the supposed references to it properly apply either to the Chimpanzee or to the Mandrill, both of which, as we have already seen, are powerful animals, and much dreaded by the African tribes. The high authority of Cuvier settled for the time the question of a second species of African Ape, and the suppositious monster was thenceforth banished from zoological science. In the year 1846, however, an American missionary at the Gaboon met with

*"Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By PAUL B. DU CHAILLU."--Murray, 1861.

REJECTED AND RECOVERED.

279 a skull, and subsequently a second skull, and a part of the skeleton, of a large Ape, which, on being forwarded to Dr. Savage of Boston, were ascertained to belong to an animal specifically distinct from the Chimpanzee, and considerably larger in size. At length, therefore, all doubt as to the actual existence of such a monster was set at rest: the rejected species was authoritatively re-introduced; and it was forthwith announced to the world as the Gorilla (Troglodytes gorilla), and largest and most powerful of the Apes, the first and foremost member of the Monkey tribe.

66

The name which Dr. Savage bestowed upon the animal is explained by the passage at the head of this chapter from the 'Periplus" of Hanno, one of the most curious fragments of antiquity which has come down to our own time. The original, of which only a Greek translation is extant, was written in Punic by Hanno, and is the narrative of a voyage he made, by the order of the Carthaginian Senate, along the African coast, for the purpose of establishing Lybo-Phoenician colonies. This voyage is generally supposed to have been made in the sixth century before Christ, although nothing certain is known, either as to the date of the voyage or the person of the voyager; but whoever Hanno was, and whenever he made his voyage, that he really discovered the "wild men" of which he speaks, there can be no reasonable doubt; and although up to the time when the existence of the second great Ape of Western Africa was clearly demonstrated, it had been customary to regard the Chimpanzee as the animal referred to, Dr. Savage seems to have had no doubt that his newly-recovered monster was the species really concerned; and hence he gave it the name by which it is mentioned in the narrative of the Carthaginian navigator.

In modern times the earliest and most trustworthy of the travellers who make mention of the great Apes of Western Africa is Andrew Battel, and he distinctly specifies two different kinds, the Pongo and the Engeco. Battel was a sailor who was taken prisoner by the Portuguese in 1589, and lived many years in Congo, where it would seem the animals were well known. "The Pongo," he says, "is in all proportions like a man, for he is very tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haires upon his brows. His body is full of haire, but not very thicke, and it is of a dunnish colour. He differeth not from man but in

280

ANDREW BATTEL'S ACCOUNT.

his legs, for they have no calfe. He goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped on the nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in trees and build shelter for the raine. They feed upon the fruit which they find in the woods, and upon ants, for they eat no kind of flesh. They cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. The people of the countrie when they travaile in the woods, make fires when they sleepe in the night; and in the morning, when they are gone, the Pongo will come and seat about the fire till it goeth out, for they have no understanding to lay the wood together. They goe many together, and kill many negroe that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall upon elephants which come to feed where they be, and so beat them with their clubbed fists and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring away from them. The Pongos are never taken alive, because they are so strong ten men cannot hold one of them; but they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrows. young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast clasped about her, so that, when the country people kill any of the females, they take the young which hangs fast upon the mother. When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great heapes of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forests."

The

It seems not improbable, from some of the circumstances mentioned in this account of the Pongo, that Battel was acquainted with both the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla; but it is evident that, if this were so, he has strangely jumbled together the habits of the two animals, and made up a story which, as a whole, is true of neither the one nor the other.

The supposed references to the Gorilla in the works of travellers of later times are all of such a vague and exaggerated character, that it is impossible to say whether they are mere travellers' tales, fabricated for the purpose of exciting the astonishment and testing the credulity of the readers, or whether they are the mere reports of native tradition. In either case they are altogether unreliable, nor does there seem to have been any real and veracious account of the animal, however meagre, till the year 1819, when it is first mentioned under its native name in the "Narrative of a Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee," by T. E. Bowditch. In speaking of a visit to the Gaboon,