590 ON THE MONKEYS KNOWN TO THE CHINESE. 



rivers it is stated, that three hundred le up in the woody dis- 

 trict of Tsowsze there are male Sang-sang. In the history of 

 the eastern latter Hans, it is said that there exists a tradition 

 among the southern barbarians, that the Yen-mang foreigners 

 have birds called Hoke (game cocks ?) and Sang-sang." Tn 

 the Japano-Chinese Encyclopedia entitled the 'Heuen cheuen 

 too hwuy,' or 'Collection of Plates explaining Sounds,' a 

 copy of which is in the possession of the British Museum, 

 and is the identical one brought by Kaempfer from Japan, 

 purchased of him by Sir Hans Sloane, and from which 

 many of the plates in his work are taken ; — is a plate (part 

 xii. 9) of the Sing-sing, here evidently an oran-otan walking 

 erect, with large ears, black body, and short cur-like tail. 

 There is no description attached to it. 



From the mass of evidence presented upon this subject, — 

 evidence so totally discrepant and conflicting, comparatively 

 little can be gleaned. The Sing-sing is most probably the 

 oran-otan, elevated by popular tradition into a rank interme- 

 diate between man and monkey. In the natural history of a 

 people who have committed errors so gross and ludicrous, as 

 will be shown in the course of this communication, — and 

 who admit into their system every monstrosity that mor- 

 bid imagination has conceived, the assumption is almost prov- 

 ed. At the same time it comes within the limits of the circle 

 of probabilities, that in the interior, so unexplored, so wild, 

 and so infested by brigandage, there may exist a race of men 

 driven out of the pale of human civilization, like the Cargot 

 or the Guoita, and degraded by popular opinion into animals ; 

 or that in a country where infant exposure is tolerated through 

 the maximum of its population, some idiots, whose life has 

 been spent amidst the mountains, may have presented the 

 melancholy spectacle of a humanity so depraved that its fel- 

 low-wearers have refused to admit it into their privileges. 



Another type that falls into this class is the * Joojin, or 

 "man-like." In the ' Shan hae king' it is called Tung yang 

 (eastern sun man), and placed among the races of men ; but in 

 the San tsae &c. it is arranged among beasts. If ever it had 

 existence, it must have been man. It walks erect, is not quad- 

 rumanous, and the only circumstance that could have given 

 rise to a notion of its being a beast, must have been the extraor- 

 dinary appearance of the head, which, in the engravings, looks 

 as if an incision had been made in the skin of the forehead, 



1 The Joo jin is apparently the oran-otan, but has the addition of hair. 

 For the indications of the scientific names of the animal, the writer is in- 

 debted to John Edward Gray, Esq. of the British Museum. 



