APES 



is still very limited, although there is no reasonable doub 

 that this animal was discovered two thousand three 

 hundred years ago. It may appear strange that this large 

 and formidable beast should have remained so little known 

 during that long period, but when we consider the danger 

 to which the traveller must be exposed in his attempts to 

 penetrate into the country inhabited by this monster and 

 the little chance held out of his return, together with the 

 small inducement to risk so much in travelling in these 

 regions, the absence of any reliable information on the 

 subject is, in a measure, accounted for. We are, therefore, 

 obliged to rely either on the statements which have been 

 made from time to time by travellers who have visited the" 

 country or on what the natives who reside there have told 

 the explorers. It must be borne in mind that it would be 

 as unjust not to accept statements as it would be unwise to 

 adopt and to readily believe some of them. It, therefore, 

 becomes necessary to carefully consider, from what we do 

 know, the probability of the truth of the various travellers' 

 tales that have been told. By the natives it is stated 

 (and history agrees) that these animals always attack man 

 and invariably carry off women and children, and that 

 individuals of our species have been obtained by the apes 

 and kept among them for years. Such accounts have been 

 received from the simple-minded natives, whose honesty 

 and truthfulness are sometimes in strong and painful 

 contrast to the misrepresentations of the more highly 

 educated, enlightened, and less humble. Certain it is 

 that the natives of the country entertain the greatest 

 fear and dread of these creatures. Our surprise at this is 

 at once removed by an examination of the animal. Its 

 power must be prodigious ; its fierce and brutal aspects 

 render it at once the most repulsive of brutes; the 

 enormous size of its arms, its grasping power, the large 



131 



