330 
ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND. 
and so words his statement, that the reader supposes them the 
natural act of the animal. This is certainly not the case with the 
orang-outang which I have described. He imitates the act of kissing 
by projecting his lips against the face of his keeper, but gives 
them no impulse. He never attempted this action on board ship, 
but has been taught it by those who now have him in charge. 
I shall enter into no speculation respecting his intellectual powers, 
compared with those of men ; but leave the foregoing account of his 
actions as a simple record of facts, that may be used by other ob- 
servers to estimate the rank which he holds in the scale of saga- 
city. In the Appendix I have made a few observations on the 
histories given of the orang-outang by different writers. 
After leaving Ascension, a favourable wind carried us rapidly to 
the end of our voyage. We made the Scilly Rocks on the afternoon 
of the 15th, and the several head-lands of the channel on the fol- 
lowing day. Towards the evening the weather becoming hazy, and 
no pilot appearing, it was deemed unsafe to attempt reaching the 
anchorage at Spithead before the next morning. During the night 
the wind suddenly shifted two points, and blew fresh from the west- 
ward, and soon increased to a gale that shivered our mainsail and 
main-top sail, and carried away our mizen topsail yard. At day- 
light, we found ourselves about ten miles to windward of the Isle 
of Wight ; and being soon after boarded by a pilot, we anchored by 
eight o’clock at Spithead, and by ten were safely landed on our 
native shores. 
