288 ANIMALS OF THE 



them run up the tackling of a ship, where they 

 sometimes play as if they had a knack of vault- 

 ing peculiar to themselves, or as if they had been 

 paid, like our rope-dancers, to divert the com- 

 pany. Sometimes, suspended by one arm, they 

 poise themselves, and then turn all of a sudden 

 round about a rope, with as much quickness as a 

 wheel, or a sling put into motion. Sometimes 

 holding the rope successively with their long 

 fingers, and letting their whole body fall into the 

 air, they run full speed from one end to the 

 other, and come back again with the same swift- 

 ness. There is no posture but they imitate, nor 

 motion but they perform. Bending themselves 

 like a bow, rolling like a bowl, hanging by the 

 hands, feet, and teeth, according to the different 

 fancies with which their capricious imagination 

 supplies them. But what is still more amazing 

 than all is, their agility to fling themselves from 

 one rope to another, though at thirty, forty, and 

 fifty feet distance." 



Such are the habitudes and the powers of the 

 smaller class of these extraordinary creatures ; 

 but we are presented with a very different picture 

 in those of a larger stature and more muscular 

 form. The little animals we have been describ- 

 ing, which are seldom found above four feet 

 high, seem to partake of the nature of dwarfs 

 among the human species, being gentle, assiduous, 

 and playful, rather fitted to amuse than terrify. 

 But the gigantic races of the ourang outang, seen 

 and described by travellers, are truly formidable ; 

 and in the gloomy forests where they are only 



