ZOOLOGY. 353 



ON THE NIAM-NJAMS, OR MEN WITH TAILS. 



"Was Lord Monboddo right, after all, about men having tails ? Prof. 

 Owen, to be sure, labored in the British Association, in its recent meeting, 

 to demolish the notion of his lordship, and of many eminent savans, that 

 man is only an improved monkey. But here is a book just brought out 

 at Paris, and making, we hear, considerable sensation in that capital, 

 which proves, or at least asserts, that our relationship to monkeydom is 

 considerably closer than the learned professor will allow ; inasmuch as 

 there exists at least one portion of our species who are ornamented with 

 what is the glorious appendage of the greater part of the monkey tribes 

 tails real, bonajide, vertebral tails. 



The reader may be inclined to think that the book in which this singu- 

 lar revelation is made is some vulgar catchpenny or foolish hoax. But it 

 purports to be the plain and unvarr.ished narrative of an eminent traveller, 

 sent out by the French government, at its expense, to make explorations 

 in the least known parts of Africa ; and it is certainly published by him 

 with all apparent seriousness. The name of this gentleman is C. L. du 

 Couret, but for peraonal safety in his African voyages he found it neces- 

 sary to disguise his nationality and abjure his religion, and he therefore 

 assumed the name on the titlepage of his book Hadji- Abd-el-Hamed- 

 Bey. The warrant on which he proceeded to Africa is given ; it is dated 

 Paris, the 7th November, 1819, and is signed by M. de Parieu, at that 

 time Minister of Public Instruction. This document expressly states that 

 he has been provided with instructions by the Academy of Sciences of 

 Paris, and it as expressly directs him, amongst other things, " to visit the 

 country of the Ghilanes, where," it says, " he has reason to believe that 

 he will find a race of men with tails, (hommes a appendice>) a specimen of 

 whom he saw at Mecca in 1812." and it directs him " to make special re- 

 searches respecting them." Unless, then, we can suppose that a regular 

 recognized traveller and savant, employed by the French government, and 

 commissioned by the French Academy of Sciences the most distinguished 

 learned body of Europe can descend to the pitiful trick of palming a 

 Munchauseii tale on the public, we must accept this book as a serious nar- 

 rative, and no hoax. 



"NVe translate the author's description of the singular people to whom he 

 introduces us : 



" The Niam-Niams, or Ghilanes, (their name signifies cannibals,) form a 

 race of men who have a great similitude with the monkey. Shorter than other 

 negroes, they are rarely more than five feet high. They are generally ill pro- 

 portioned ; their bodies are thin, and appear weak ; their arias long and lank ; 

 their feet and hands larger and natter than those of other races of men ; 

 their lower jaws are very strong and very long; their cheek-bones are 

 high ; their forehead is narrow, and falls backwards ; their ears are long 

 and deformed ; their eyes small, brilliant, and remarkably restless ; their 



