98 



A NEW HISTORY OF 



Leaving then these Gordian knots to be unra- 

 velled by experter hands than mine; I must beg 

 permission to repudiate the accounts which have 

 reached us of apes armed with clubs and of their 

 assaulting men in the forests ; — of apes taking 

 young black ladies up to the tops of the trees, and 

 persuading them to join company for three long 

 years ; — of apes throwing fruit, at stated distances, 

 from orchards into each others hands; — of apes 

 building habitations for themselves; of monkeys 

 preaching in the wilderness ; and of others acting 

 the part of skilful surgeons, by stopping hemorrhages, 

 and by subduing inflammations. These amusing 

 fables must have been invented by designing 

 knaves to gull some credulous adventurer in want 

 of matter for a book of travels. I never saw 

 anything of the sort in the forests of Guiana. 



There is difficulty in assigning to the monkey 

 family, its true place in zoological nomenclature ; 

 for monkeys cannot be considered four-footed 

 animals, as they have really no feet : neither are 

 they exactly four-handed animals, as their hind 

 limbs are formed of half feet, and half hands. 

 Neither can they be named bipeds, although some 

 naturalists would fain make us believe, that orang- 

 outangs and chimpanzees will walk upright like 

 ourselves. But, this wants explanation. In cap- 



