SIMIAD^E. 373 



adult, generally attain the height of five feet, the breadth of the shoulders 

 being very considerable ; that their paw is disproportionate in size to the 

 breadth of their bodies, and that one blow from it is fatal ; that they are 

 seen commonly, by those who travel to Kaylee, lurking in the bush to 

 destroy passengers ; that their food consists principally of wild honey ; 

 and that they possess so little sagacity as often to sacrifice themselves, by 

 imitating men carrying burdens of wood, or Elephants' teeth, under which 

 they sink exhausted. The same traveller also describes a half-grown 

 individual, which he saw at Gaboon, in a state of captivity, as having the 

 cry, visage, and action of a very old man ; as being obedient to the voice 

 of its master ; and as evincing great agony at the sight of a panther. 



Among the earlier travellers, in whose works some accounts of this 

 animal are to be found, may be noticed Andrew Battel, Jobson, Dapper, 

 Bosnian, and others, who visited the inter-tropical parts of Western 

 Africa. The details of its manners and habits, as represented by these 

 writers, might well startle the most credulous ; yet they appear to have 

 been received as truth, and have even influenced the reasoning and 

 opinions of philosophers. Whether these travellers were themselves 

 deceived whether from ignorance, or misled by their imagination, they 

 mingled together the manners of some savage tribes, inhabiting the forests, 

 with those of the Chimpanzee, Mandrill, or other large species of Mon- 

 key, so as to produce a tissue of utter disorder or whether they purposely 

 invented their stories, or magnified into the marvellous, details which, 

 when viewed in their true light, have little of the wonderful, it is now 

 impossible to ascertain. 



One of the most trustworthy of these writers, Andrew Battel, a sailor, 

 who was taken prisoner in 1589, and lived many years in Congo (Pur- 

 chas's Pilgrims, ii.), distinguishes two animals, one under the name of 

 Pongo, the other under the name of Enjeco ; * the former as high as, and 

 stouter than, a Man ; the latter much less, being, as there is reason to sus- 

 pect, the young of the former. The Pongo (or Chimpanzee), he states, 

 had sunken eyes, long hairs on the sides of the head, a naked face, ears, 

 and hands, and the body slightly covered ; the limbs differed from those of 

 Man, in being destitute of calves, but the animal walked upright. In its 

 disposition it was grave and melancholy, and even, when young, far from 

 being frolicsome ; -at the same time it was swift and agile, and was some- 

 times known to carry away young Negroes. He further states, that these 

 animals constructed arbours among the branches of the trees, in which they 

 slept ; and that, in walking upright, they generally carried the hands 

 clasped on the hinder part of the neck, an attitude assumed, no doubt, 

 to counterbalance the tendency of the body to fall forward, and thus to 

 maintain an equilibrium. He adds, also, that they subsisted wholly upon 



* Perhaps the same word as Inchego, or Ingeno. 



