Return to the River. 
176 
the skeleton deer prepared by the emmets of the 
Hartz Forest, which taught Oken that the skull 
is(?) expanded vertebrae. We did not know that 
half-starved dogs and “ drivers ” will not respect 
even arsenical soap. The consequence of ex¬ 
posing the skeleton upon an ant-hill, where it 
ought to have been neatly cleaned during a night, 
was that the “ Pariah ” curs carried off sundry ribs, 
and the “ parva magni formica laboris ” took the 
trouble to devour the skin of a foot. Worse still : 
the skull, the brain, and the delicate members had 
been headed up in a breaker of trade rum, which 
was not changed till the seventh day. It was 
directed to an eminent member of the old Anthro¬ 
pological Society, and the most interesting parts 
arrived, I believe, soft, pulpy, and utterly useless. 
The subject seems to have been too sore for men¬ 
tioning—at least, I never heard of it again. 
The late Dr. John Edward Gray, of the British 
Museum, called this Nchigo Mpolo, from its bear¬ 
like masses of breast-pile, the “ hairy Chimpanzee” 
(Troglodytes vellerosus ). After my return home I 
paid it a visit, and could only think that the hirsute 
one was considerably “mutatus ab illo.” The co¬ 
lour had changed, and the broad-chested, square¬ 
framed, pot-bellied, and portly old bully-boy of 
the woods had become a wretched pigeon-breasted, 
lean-flanked, shrunk-limbed, hungry-looking beg¬ 
gar. It is a lesson to fill out the skin, even with 
