THE MAN-LIKE APES. 13 



tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long hah'e 

 upon his browes. His face and eares are without haire, 

 and his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not 

 very thicke ; and it is of a dunnish colour. 



" He differ eth not from a man but in his legs ; for 

 they have no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, 

 and carrieth his hands clasped in the nape of his necke 

 when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the 

 trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon 

 fruit that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for 

 they eate no kind of flesh. They cannot speake, and 

 have no understanding more than a beast. The people 

 of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods, make 

 fires where they sleepe in the night ; and in the morn- 

 ing when they are gone, the Pongoes will come and sit 

 about the fire till it goeth out ; for they have no under- 

 standing to lay the wood together. They goe many 

 together, and kill many negroes that travaile in the 

 woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants wliich 

 come to feed where they be, and so beate tliem with 

 their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will 

 runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are 

 never taken alive because they are so strong, that ten 

 men cannot hold one of them ; but yet they take many 

 of their young ones with poisoned arrowes. 



" The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly 

 with his hands fast clasped about her, so that when the 

 countrie people kill any of the females they take the 

 young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother. 



" When they die among themselves, they cover the 

 dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which is 

 commonly foim,d in the forest." * 



* Purchas' marginal note, p. 982 : — " The Pongo is a giant ape. He told 

 me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes tooke a negro boy of 



