THE MAN-LIKE APES. 11 



notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of 

 any animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and 

 are due to an Englishman. 



The 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 be- 

 twixt the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant of 

 a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the 

 woods." From 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 pro- 

 portionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men 

 and women in their whole bodily shape.* They lived 

 on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and 

 in the night time lodged on the trees." 



This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its 

 statements than a passage in the third chapter of the sec- 

 ond part of another work — " Purchas his Pilgrimes," pub- 

 lished in 1625, by the same author — which has been often, 

 though hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The 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 adioning regions neere eight- 

 eene yeeres." And the sixth section of this chapter is 



* " Except this that their legges had no calves." — [Ed. 1626.] And in a 

 marginal note, ' These great apes are called Pongo's." 



