8 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 



to the animals whose characters and habits are so 

 fully and carefully described — seems to have died 

 out, at least in its primitive form and signification. 

 Indeed, there is evidence that not onlv in BattelPs 

 time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in 

 a totally different sense from that in which he em- 

 ploys it. 



For example, the second chapter of Purchas' 

 work, which I have just quoted, contains " A De- 

 scription and Historicall Declaration of the Golden 

 Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from the 

 Dutch, and compared also with the Latin/' where- 

 in it is stated (p. 986) that — 



" The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles north- 

 ward from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward from 

 Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under 

 the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, 

 and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At 

 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. This 

 river, in the mouth thereof, is at least four miles broad ; 

 but when you are about the Hand called Pongo, it is not 

 above two miles broad. ... On both sides the river there 



standeth many trees The Hand called Pongo, 



which hath a monstrous high hill." 



'»■ 



The French naval officers, whose letters are ap- 

 pended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's 

 excellent essay on the Gorilla,* note in similar 

 terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line 



* Archives (In Museum, Tome X. 



