Evidence as to Mans Place In Nature | Page 6

describe two islands in its estuary;--one low, called Perroquet; the other high, presenting three conical hills, called Coniquet; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called 'Meni-Pongo', meaning thereby Lord of 'Pongo'; and that the 'N'Pongues' (as, in agreement with Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives call themselves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 'N'Pongo'.
[footnote] *'Archives du Museum', tome x.
It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, where his "greater monster" still abounds, with the name of the animal itself. But he is so right about other matters (including the name of the "lesser monster") that one is loth to suspect the old traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall find that a voyager of a hundred years' later date speaks of the name "Boggoe," as applied to a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another part of Africa--Sierra Leone.
But I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and travellers; and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious part played by this word 'Pongo'in the later history of the man-like Apes.
The generation which succeeded Battell saw the first of the man-like Apes which was ever brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' 'Observationes Medicae', published in 1641, the 56th chapter or section is devoted to what he calls 'Satyrus indicus', "called by the Indians Orang-autang or Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this animal, "nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," presented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange. Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years old, and as stout as one of six years: and that its back was covered with black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.
In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like Apes became known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure of an animal which he calls "Orang-outang"; and though he says "vidi Ego cujus effigiem hic exhibeo," the said effigies (see Fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and with proportions and feet wholly human. The judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified in saying of this description by Bontius, "I confess I do mistrust the whole representation."
It is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the first account of a man-like ape which has any pretensions to scientific accuracy and completeness. The treatise entitled, "'Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris'; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a 'Monkey', an 'Ape', and a 'Man'," published by the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the country"; its hair "was of a coal-black colour and strait," and "when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when weak and had not strength enough to support its body."--"From the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a strait line, it measured twenty-six inches."
FIGS. 3 and 4.--The 'Pygmie' reduced from Tyson's figures 1 and 2, 1699.
These characters, even without Tyson's good figures (Figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient to prove his "Pygmie" to be a young Chimpanzee. But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of the very animal Tyson anatomised having most unexpectedly presented itself to me, I am able to bear independent testimony to its being a veritable 'Troglodytes niger'*, though still very young. Although fully appreciating the resemblances between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means overlooked the differences between the two, and he concludes his memoir by summing up first, the points in which "the Ourang-outang or Pygmie more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys do," under forty-seven distinct heads; and then giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the respects in which "the Ourang-outang or Pygmie differ'd from a Man and resembled more the Ape and Monkey kind."
[footnote] * I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce,