1862-64 GORILLAS 147 



Chaillu. It is so good, so superior to his earlier 

 letters, so full of fire, noble, and self-sacrificing 

 resolution, that I shall read it as our opening 

 morceau at the Geographical, November 12. 



' He tells me he has sent to the British Museum 

 many insects, butterflies, &c, &c, and twenty 

 gorillas, and a live one for the Zoological. You 

 have probably heard too. He was just going off 

 into the vast interior with a stout heart and in 

 good spirits at having been replenished with his 

 scientific instruments. 



' Never were we more in the right than when 

 we stood up for this fine little fellow.' 



A few weeks later, arrived some African articles 

 from M. Du Chaillu for Owen himself. These con- 

 sisted of a number of mats, a piece of native cloth, 

 a drum, and a kind of harp, ' a well-made but 

 primitive instrument. The piece of skin which is 

 stretched over the wood-work is an elephant's ear.' 



With such incessant work on his hands, Owen 

 would have been more than human if he had 

 altogether escaped illness. At the close of 1863 

 — on December 28 — he writes to Mr. White 

 Cooper : ' For a wonder (and I can't be suffi- 

 ciently thankful for having been free so many 

 years), I am tied to my house by sciatica in the 

 left limb, which keeps me awake half the night. 

 . . . Poor Thackeray s departure was a sorrow- 

 ful shock to me ; I had been greeted by him only 

 the Friday previously at the club.' 



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