CHAPTER I. 



I. STORIES OF TRAVELLERS. 



FOR three centuries the rumour has been current that 

 there existed on the western coast of Africa, north and 

 south of the equator, an ape of immense strength and 

 gigantic size, of all animals the largest and most 

 formidable the king of the African forests. 



Let us see what travellers say concerning this 

 animal. 



At the beginning of the seventeenth century Andrew 

 Battel, who had been for a long time a prisoner of the 

 Portuguese in Angola, described, under the name of 

 .Pom/o, an ape resembling a man in all his proportions, 

 but as large as a giant, and so strong that ten men 

 were not sufficient to subdue one of them. 



"He has a human face," said Battel, "with sunken 

 eyes, long hair on the sides of his head, his face naked, 

 as well as his ears and his hands ; his body rather 

 shaggy; his hair of dark brown. He differs from 



B 



