138 APES AND MONKEYS 



but after some weeks of persistent labor and a bribe of 

 corned beef, he began to see dimly what I wanted him to 

 do. The native word quoted is very similar to one of the 

 sounds of his own speech, which means "good" or "satis- 

 faction." The vowel element differs in them, and he was 

 not able in the time he was under tuition to change them ; 

 but he distinguished them from other words. 



In his attempt to say mamma he worked his lips with- 

 out making any sound, although he really tried to do so. 

 I believe that in the course of time he would have suc- 

 ceeded. He observed the movement of my lips and tried 

 to imitate it, but he seemed to think that the lips alone 

 produced the sound. With feu he succeeded fairly well, 

 except that the consonant element, as he uttered it, 

 resembled "v" more than "f," so that the sound was 

 more like vu, making the "u" short as in "nut." It was 

 quite as nearly perfect as most people of other tongues 

 ever learn to speak the same word in French, and, if it 

 had been uttered in a sentence, any one knowing that 

 language would recognize it as meaning fire. In his 

 efforts to pronounce wie he always gave the vowel ele- 

 ment like German "u" with the umlaut, but the "w" 

 element was more like the English than the German sound 

 of that letter. 



Taking into consideration the fact that he was only a 

 little more than a year old, and was in training less than 

 three months, his progress was all that could have been 

 desired, and vastly more than had been hoped for. It is 

 my belief that, had he lived until this time, he would have 

 mastered these and other words of human speech to the 



