ANTHEOPOID APES. 521 



observations of these beasts in their natural home and wild con- 

 dition, for malarial fevers and consequent risk of death must 

 always deter even the most enthusiastic travellers from such an ex- 

 ploit, allowing it to be otherwise possible. Of these forests some idea 

 can be gleaned from the description given by the traveller Hugo von 

 Koppenfels in a letter to Mr. Haward, of Rochester, United States, 

 who remarks^ respecting his explorations in the Gaboon, and its won- 

 ders : " No writer can give a just description of a primitive tropical 

 forest ; it is too grand and diversified ; but with all its exterior 

 splendour and beauty, it is a deceitful and dangerous thing. "Woe 

 to the inexperienced man who essays to penetrate into its interior^ 

 he soon becomes involved in a chaos of roots, of interlacing lianas, 

 of fallen trunks covered with a tangled growth of thorny under- 

 brush all growing from a dark and swampy soil. Here he breathes 

 a stagnant, musty, greenhouse air, which depresses the spirits and 

 deadens the energies. Added to this there is a deep gloomy 

 silence which broods over this place of most luxuriant growth and 

 rapid decay. Although these mysterious shadows hide an active 

 and varied animal life, the ear is seldom struck by a sound of any 

 kind. Only now and then the falling of a fruit or a dry branch 

 breaks the oppressive stillness. Early in the morning, and in the 

 short evening twilight of the tropics, some birds are heard to herald 

 the advent or departure of the day. Such a forest is a subject of 

 unending study, and only he whom nature has endowed with 

 peculiar tastes and acute senses can, with use and experience, be- 

 come familiar with its varied constituents, its changing phases, and 

 its silent language. Woe to the novice who, without guide, wanders 

 into its recesses, where death lurks for him. In most cases he is 

 soon hopelessly lost, and when weary and despairing he throws 

 himself on the ground to rest, swarms of ants and other insects 

 soon sting him into movement again. Almost no wholesome food 

 is attainable in these forest depths, and should the traveller not 

 die of starvation, or fall a victim to violent, acute fever, the 

 poisonous atmosphere slowly acting on the system, paralyses the 

 digestion, corrupts the blood, and produces irritating eruptions of 

 the skin, and frequently malignant ulcers. Such is the primitive 

 ' See American Naturalist for 1881. 



