CHAP. IV. 



COUSIN SARAH. 5? 



the orang-utan which inhabits Borneo and Sumatra ; and 

 the siamangs and gibbons which are also found in the 

 great islands of the Malay Archipelago but inhabit too the 

 mainland of Eastern Asia. At the Zoo in the same house 

 as Sally, you may see one of these gibbons, an impish 

 embodiment of ever-restless mercurial activity. Nothing 

 can exceed her marvellous yet graceful agility, the wonder- 

 ful precision of all her surprising leaps, and the way she 

 uses her long arms as she swings her lithe body through 

 the air. I propose, as serving to throw some light on the 

 character and disposition of these several relations of 

 Sally's, to give a short account of what has been told us of 

 the man-like apes in captivity. I will then try and show 

 by what right Sally and the rest can claim even a remote 

 cousinhood to us. 



The traveller Du Chaillti, who in 1855 set sail from 

 America with the express object of meeting the gorilla 

 face to face, tells us of a savage little fellow, about three 

 years old and two and a half feet high, whom he kept for 

 a short time in a bamboo cage. When the traveller 

 approached him, soon after he had been ushered into his 

 new apartment, with words of encouragement and wel- 

 come, Master Joe so was he styled most uncivilly made 

 a precipitate rush for him. And though the intrepid 

 hunter retreated as quickly as he could, I regret to say 

 that Joe was unmannerly enough to thrust his hind-leg 

 through the bars and (think of the indignity !) tear the 

 great man's trousers. This was indeed a bad beginning. 

 Ill-tempered he was at first : ill-tempered I am sorry to 

 say he remained. On the fourth day he made his escape 

 by forcing apart two of the bamboo rails of his cage. 

 Luckily Du Chaillu came up just as his flight was dis- 

 covered, and was hurriedly mustering all his negroes for 

 pursuit when he was startled by an angry growl from 



