THE TERRIBLE. 



improved by the wound on my face, which still 

 remains, and ever will. I am now an older hand 

 at kangaroo-hunting, and never venture to attack 

 so formidable an antagonist with an ant-eaten 

 club ; my dogs, also, have grown too wary to 

 rush heedlessly within reach of his deadly rips. 

 We have killed many since, but rarely so fine a one 

 as that which first tried our mettle on the plains 

 of New Holland."* 



The equatorial coast of Africa has recently 

 yielded to European science a gigantic kind of 

 man-like ape, which affords a curious confirmation 

 of an old classic story. Somewhere about the 

 sixth century before the Christian era, one Hanno 

 is reported to have sailed from Carthage, through 

 the Pillars of Hercules, on a voyage of explora- 

 tion along the coast of Africa. In the record of 

 this voyage there occurs the following passage: — 

 "Passing the Streams of Fire, we came to a bay 

 called the Horn of the South. In the recess there 

 was an island like the first, having a lake, and in 

 this there was another island full of wild men. 

 But much the greater part of them were women, 

 with hairy bodies, whom the interpreters called 

 'Gorillas ' But pursuing them, we were not able 

 to take the men; they all escaped, being able to 

 climb the precipices ; and defended themselves with 

 pieces of rock. But three women, who bit and 

 scratched those who led them, were not willing to 

 follow. However, having killed them, we flayed 

 them, and conveyed the skins to Carthage; for we 

 did not sail any further, as provisions began to 

 fail.'f 



The "wild men'' of the ancient navigator were 

 doubtless identical with the. great anthropoid ape 



* Sporting Review, ii. p. 343. 

 t M Periplus." 



243 



