4 THE MAN-LIKE APES I 



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 betwixt the Portugals (among 

 whom he was a sergeant of a band) and him, 

 lived eight or nine moneths in the woodes." 

 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 proportionable, hairie all over, 

 otherwise altogether like men and women in their 

 whole bodily shape. 1 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 second part of another work 

 " Purchas his Pilgrimes," published 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 

 adioining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And 

 the sixth section of this chapter is headed " Of 

 the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Mani- 

 kesocke, Motimbas : of the Ape Monster Pongo, 



1 "Except this that their legges had no calves." [Ed. 1626.] 

 A.nd in a marginal note, " These great apes are called Pongo's." 



