522 WILD ANIMALS. 



forests ou the alluvial bottoms of the rivers of tropical Africa. It 

 has been represented as a paradise, and poetical descriptions, 

 drawn from the imagination, have inspired in many a longing 

 desire to penetrate their mysteries. One must, however, do as 

 I have done, wander lost and alone for days together, enduring 

 terrible suffering and constant fear of death, before he can form 

 for himself a true image of the real tropical primeval forest." 



The conclusions arrived at by Professor Huxley on the subject 

 are beyond dispute, for, as he remarks : " Once in a generation, a 

 Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and morally qualified 

 to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of America and 

 Asia ; to form magnificent collections as he wanders ; and withal 

 to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his collec- 

 tions ; but to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense forests 

 of Equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favourite 

 habitation of the orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, present 

 difficulties of no ordinary magnitude ; and the man who risks his 

 life by even a short visit to the malarious shores of those regions 

 may well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of the 

 interior ; if he contents himself with stimulating the industry of 

 the better seasoned natives, and collecting and collating the more 

 or less mythical reports and traditions which they are too ready 

 to supply him. 



" In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits 

 of the man -like apes originated; and even now a good deal of 

 what passes current must be admitted to have no very safe 

 fmmdation." 



This was undoubtedly the source of those blood-curdling, ter- 

 rible descriptions that passed for truth till very lately respecting 

 the anthropoid monsters with women-stealing and elephant-slaying 

 propensities, which were said to hold undisputed possession of 

 certain territories in South Africa. 



When Carthage was taken by the Romans and its treasures 

 plundered, two skins were found hanging in the temple of Juno. 

 They belonged to animals called *' gorgones," which was a name 

 substituted for the one originally given them of " gorillas," and 

 were the identical skins that had been procured by Hanno. 



