188 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Ourang outangs employed as servants. 



board the vessel it frequently ran up the rigging, 

 and played a variety of antics aloft, to divert the 

 company. It could leap with surprising agility 

 from one rope to another, though fifteen or 

 twenty feet asunder. 



Mr. Hamilton, when in Java, saw one of these 

 animals, which he describes as of a grave and 

 melancholy deportment. He says, that it would 

 light a fire and blow it with its mouth; and that 

 it would even broil a fish, to eat with its boiled 

 rice, in imitation of the persons who were about 

 it. Pyrard asserts, that the animals of this spe- 

 cies found in Sierra Leona, are strong and well 

 formed, and so industrious, that, when properly 

 trained and fed, they work like servants: that 

 when ordered, they will pound any substance in 

 a mortar; and are frequently sent to fetch water 

 from the rivers in small pitchers, which they 

 carry full on their heads; but when they arrive 

 at the door of the dwelling, if these are not soon 

 taken off they suffer them to fall, and when they 

 perceive the pitcher overturned and broken they 

 utter loud lamentations. Barbot says also, that 

 they are frequently rendered useful to the Euro- 

 peans on the coast of Guinea, by being taught to 

 turn a spit, watch the roasting of meat, &c. which 

 they perform with considerable dexterity. 



M. de la Brosse purchased two of these ani- 

 mals, which would sit at table like men, and eat 

 every kind of food without distinction. They 

 would use a knife, fork., or spoon, to cut or lay 



