MR. PON GO. 



575 



even while Mr. Pongo's German attendant is la- 

 boriously enunciating the few sentences in English 

 in which he relates the history and describes the 

 habits of his interesting charge. 



Mr. Pongo is a very nice beast, but he is not 

 so clever as August, nor so sympathetic as Flok, 

 and one feels about him after a little while as one 

 feels about the heavy child in a nursery — that he 

 is good and safe, but hardly amusing. There is 

 something disconcerting about him, too, though 

 it is in one's own mind, not in him; it is the in- 

 clination to treat him rather as a human being 

 of the unintelligent than as an animal of the ex- 

 ceptionally intelligent kind. One speaks to him 

 with marked distinctness and emphasis, and pets 

 him, not with the flippant smartness one would 

 bestow upon "Nature's Punchinello," his com- 

 panion, but gravely, and with an effort to make 

 him understand, as one might pet one of the 

 harmless " cases " at the Earlswood Asylum. In 

 the quiet heaviness of his manner there is some- 

 thing that makes one feel patient and painstak- 

 ing, as with a creature of slow brain and percep- 

 tion ; and when he claps his dreadfully human 

 hands, with the black skin in wrinkles on them 

 like ill-fitting gloves, and pounds them on the 

 floor, demanding notice and applauding himself, 

 one claps and nods at him just as one would 

 at a deficient child. He is singularly dumb, 

 too, rarely uttering any sound at all, while 

 one of his friends chatters freely, and the 

 other barks in all the exuberant delight of 

 games of play, of which Mr. Pongo is for the 

 most part only a spectator, decidedly at a disad- 

 vantage where general liveliness is in question. 

 When seated on the ground, with his gray back, 

 his round, neatly-formed head, with comparative- 

 ly small and close-sitting ears, turned toward one, 

 his long arms folded, his spare small legs, so dis- 

 proportionate in size to his powerful arms, hid- 

 den, his lean thighs tucked close to his thick, 

 bulging, ridgy sides, he is wonderfully like a very 

 strongly-built child to whom " rickets" has come 

 unaccountably, and in contradiction of his appar- 

 ent constitution. Mr. Pongo's face is amiable, 

 and his attendant declares him to be " very good- 

 natured ; " the eyes are serious and quiet, by no 

 means so melancholy a* the eyes of most monkeys 

 with whom we have previously been acquainted ; 

 and when he hitches himself against tl*e wires of 

 his cage, his legs extended, one arm lying negli- 

 gently across his lap, and the other indolently 

 raised while he lazily scratches his head, he re- 

 minds one of Punch's pictures of an Irish Fenian, 

 without the ferocity, the tattered tail-coat, and 



the brimless hat. He is not four years old, but 

 he looks fifty, and there is not the contradiction 

 between his face and his manners which exists in 

 the case of most monkeys, for his demeanor is 

 likewise middle-aged. Not, perhaps, that he re- 

 members the Gaboon, his captivity, and his 

 slaughtered relatives, but that he thinks solemn 

 spectators who don't talk to him a bore, and the 

 corner of the Aquarium gallery dull, lie is said 

 to be fond of children, and he certainly bright- 

 ened up when some came in, but they were shy 

 of him, and did not respond to his hint that a 

 little applause would be agreeable. He gravely 

 climbs the ladder up which August skips with 

 derisive ease, and tests the strength of the wire- 

 work screen of his cage with nice attention ; but 

 he seemingly makes up his mind each time that 

 it will not " bear," and relinquishes the attempt 

 to follow the dauntless chimpanzee, who rushes 

 about overhead doing daring trapeze-feats, dan- 

 gling himself by the ropes, just out of reach of the 

 barking and jumping dog, and mocking the much 

 superior strength of Mr. Pongo by his far greater 

 agility. Sometimes he has a friendly rough-and- 

 tumble with Flok, or gives August an admonitory 

 cuff and roll-over ; but for the most part he sits 

 on the floor, watching their play, or arranging his 

 blanket, in which he packs his feet up exactly as 

 we have seen children pack their feet up in their 

 blankets on winter nights, and he uses his hands 

 in these operations in a thoroughly human way. 

 Very like a man and a brother is he also when he 

 drinks out of a bottle, grasping it in both hands, 

 putting his head well back, and emptying the last 

 drop down his throat. It is quite a pleasant di- 

 version from the close resemblance when, his at- 

 tention being attracted to another chance of se- 

 curing the much-disputed blanket, he transfers 

 the bottle to his foot, holding it firmly with the 

 toes. His slight, flat, small-heeled feet are more 

 like those of a man than the feet of any other 

 monkey, we are told, but the likeness ceases with 

 the toes ; these are fingers, and have all the 

 movements of fingers ; nor is the face human be- 

 low the brow and eyes. The absence of a nasal 

 promontory ; the wide, sunk black nostrils, like 

 those of a hippopotamus on a very small scale; 

 the semicircular sweep of the mouth ; the thick, 

 calf-like tongue, and something in the action of 

 the jaw and throat, when the animal lifts up his 

 head and one sees him from the side, which also 

 reminds one of a calf, form an unlikcness to the 

 human race as forcible as the resemblance in 

 other respects is striking. 



Mr. Pongo is in excellent health now, but has 



