Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature
Part 1 · 1/8
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature
Part 1
1Produced by Amy E. 2Zelmer EVIDENCE AS TO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE By Thomas H. 3Huxley 1863 [entire page is illustration with caption as follows] Skeletons of the GIBBON. 4ORANG. 5CHIMPANZEE. 6GORILLA. 7MAN. 8'Photographically reduced from Diagrams of the natural size (except that of the Gibbon, which was twice as large as nature), drawn by Mr. 9Waterhouse Hawkins from specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 10ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one, presaging a reality. 11Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a western world: and though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only in the realms of art, creatures approaching man more nearly than they in essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as the goat's or horse's half of the mythical compound, are now not only known, but notorious. 12I have not met with any notice of one of these MAN-LIKE APES of earlier date than that contained in Pigafetta's 'Description of the Kingdom of Congo,' [1] drawn up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and published in 1598. 13The tenth chapter of this work is entitled "De Animalibus quae in hac provincia reperiuntur," and contains a brief passage to the effect that "in the Songan country, on the banks of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which afford great delight to the nobles by imitating human gestures." 14As this might apply to almost any kind of apes, I should have thought little of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose engravings illustrate the work, thought fit, in their eleventh 'Argumentum,' to figure two of these "Simiae magnatum deliciae." 15So much of the plate as contains these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (Fig. 1), and it will be observed that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and about the size of Chimpanzees. 16It may be that these apes are as much figments of the imagination of the ingenious brothers as the winged, two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon which adorns the same plate; or, on the other hand, it may be that the artists have constructed their drawings from some essentially faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. 17And, in either case, though these figures are worth a passing notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of any animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and are due to an Englishman. 18[Illustration: FIG. 191.--SIMIAE MAGNATUM DELICIAE.--De Bry, 1598.] 20The first edition of that most amusing old book, 'Purchas his Pilgrimage,' was published in 1613, and therein are to be found many references to the statements of one whom Purchas terms "Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him went farre into the countrey of Angola"; and again, "my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of Congo many yeares," and who, "upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant of a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the woodes." 21From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas was amazed to hear "of a kinde of Great Apes, if they might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men and women in their whole bodily shape. 22[2] They lived on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the night time lodged on the trees." 23This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements than a passage in the third chapter of the second part of another work--'Purchas his Pilgrimes,' published in 1625, by the same author--which has been often, though hardly ever quite rightly, cited. 24The chapter is entitled, "The strange adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the adjoining regions neere eighteene yeeres." 25And the sixth section of this chapter is headed--"Of the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Manikesocke, Motimbas: of the Ape Monster Pongo, their hunting: Idolatries; and divers other observations." 26"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon Bongo, and toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen leagues from Longo along the coast. 27"This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so over-growne that a man may travaile twentie days in the shadow without any sunne or heat. 28Here is no kind of corne nor graine, so that the people liveth onely upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good; and nuts; nor any kinde of tame cattell, nor hens. 29"But they have great store of elephant's flesh, which they greatly esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts; and great store of fish. 30Here is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the northward of Cape Negro, [3] which is the port of Mayombe. 31Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in this bay. 32Here is a great river, called Banna: in the winter it hath no barre, because the generall winds cause a great sea. 33But when the sunne hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in; for then it is smooth because of the raine. 34This river is very great, and hath many ilands and people dwelling in them. 35The woods are so covered with baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, that it will feare any man to travaile in them alone. 36Here are also two kinds of monsters, which are common in these woods, and very dangerous. 37"The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their language, and the lesser is called Engeco. 38This Pongo is in all proportion like a man; but that he is more like a giant in stature than a man; for he is very tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon his browes. 39His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. 40His bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke; and it is of a dunnish colour. 41"He differeth not from a man but in his legs; for they have no calfe. 42Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in the nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. 43They sleepe in the trees, and build shelters for the raine. 44They feed upon fruit that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. 45They cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. 46The people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning when they are gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth out; for they have no understanding to lay the wood together. 47They goe many together and kill many negroes that travaile in the woods. 48Many times they fall upon the elephants which come to feed where they be, and so beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring away from them. 49Those Pongoes are never taken alive because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them; but yet they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrowes. 50"The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast clasped about her, so that when the countrie people kill any of the females they take the young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother. 51"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forest." 52[4] It does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which Battell speaks. 53Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually spelled Loango on our maps. 54Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues northward from Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke, and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. 55The Cape Negro of Battell, however, cannot be the modern Cape Negro in 16 degrees S., since Loango itself is in 4 degrees S. latitude. 56On the other hand, the "great river called Banna" corresponds very well with the "Camma" and "Fernand Vas," of modern geographers, which form a great delta on this part of the African coast. 57Now this "Camma" country is situated about a degree and a-half south of the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon, and a degree or so north of that, the Money River--both well known to modern naturalists as localities where the largest of man-like Apes has been obtained. 58Moreover, at the present day, the word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied by the natives of these regions to the smaller of the two great Apes which inhabit them; so that there can be no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or, at any rate, by immediate report from the natives of Western Africa. 59The "Engeco," however, is that "other monster" whose nature Battell "forgot to relate," while the name "Pongo"--applied to the animal whose characters and habits are so fully and carefully described--seems to have died out, at least in its primitive form and signification. 60Indeed, there is evidence that not only in Battell's time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally different sense from that in which he employs it. 61For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I have just quoted, contains "A Description and Historicall Declaration of the Golden Kingdom of Guinea, etc. etc. 62Translated from the Dutch, and compared also with the Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that-- "The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalves (Cape Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. 63Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. 64At the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out of the river into the sea. 65This river, in the mouth thereof, is at least four miles broad; but when you are about the Iland called 'Pongo', it is not above two miles broad.... 66On both sides the river there standeth many trees.... 67The Iland called 'Pongo', which hath a monstrous high hill." 68[Illustration: FIG 2.--The Orang of Tulpius, 1641.] 69The French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the late M. 70Isidore Geoff. 71Saint Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla [5], note in similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line its banks down to the water's edge, and the strong current that sets out of it. 72They describe two islands in its estuary;--one low, called Perroquet; the other high, presenting three conical hills, called Coniquet; and one of them, M. 73Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called 'Meni-Pongo', meaning thereby Lord of 'Pongo'; and that the 'N'Pongues' (as, in agreement with Dr. 74Savage, he affirms the natives call themselves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 'N'Pongo'. 75It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, where his "greater monster" still abounds, with the name of the animal itself. 76But he is so right about other matters (including the name of the "lesser monster") that one is loth to suspect the old traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall find that a voyager of a hundred years' later date speaks of the name "Boggoe," as applied to a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another part of Africa--Sierra Leone. 77But I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and travellers; and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious part played by this word 'Pongo'in the later history of the man-like Apes. 78The generation which succeeded Battell saw the first of the man-like Apes which was ever brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit found a historian. 79In the third book of Tulpius' 'Observationes Medicae', published in 1641, the 56th chapter or section is devoted to what he calls 'Satyrus indicus', "called by the Indians Orang-autang or Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans Quoias Morrou." 80He gives a very good figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this animal, "nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," presented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange.
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