MR., MRS., AND MASTER GORILLA. 
73 
the other Engeco ” (in the older editions “ Encego,” 
evidently Nchfgo, whilst Engeco may have given rise 
to our “ Jocko ”). “ The Pongo is in all his proportions 
like a man, except the legs, which have no calves, but 
are of a gigantic size. Their faces, hands, and ears are 
without hair ; their bodies are covered, but not very 
thick, with hair of a dunnish colour. When they walk 
on the ground it is upright, with their hands on the nape 
of the neck. They sleep in trees, and make a covering 
over their heads to shelter them from the rain. They eat 
no flesh, but feed on nuts and other fruits ; they cannot 
speak, nor have they any understanding beyond instinct. 
“ When the people of the country travel through the 
woods, they make fires in the night, and in the morning, 
when they are gone, the Pongos will come and sit 
round it till it goes out, for they do not possess sagacity 
enough to lay more wood on. They go in bodies, and 
kill many negroes who travel in the woods. When 
elephants happen to come and feed where they are, 
they will fall on them, and so beat them with their 
clubbed fists (sticks?) that they are forced to run away 
roaring. The grown Pongos are never taken alive, 
owing to their strength, which is so great that ten men 
cannot hold one of them. The young Pongos hang 
upon their mother’s belly, with their hands clasped 
about her. Many of the young ones are taken by 
means of shooting the mothers with poisoned arrows, 
and the young ones, hanging to their mothers, are 
easily taken.” 
I have italicized the passages which show that the 
traditions still preserved on the coast, about the Pongo 
and the Chimpanzee, date from old. Surely M. du 
Chaillu does grave injustice to this good old Briton, 
who was not a literary man, by declaring his stories to 
be mere travellers’ tales, “ untrue of any of the great 
apes of Africa.” Battel had evidently not seen the 
animal, and with his negro informants he confounds 
the gorilla and the “ bushman ; ” yet he possibly alludes 
to a species which has escaped M. du Chaillu and other 
modern observers. 
