Africa loaded with the spoils of a chase of
hairy four-handed savages instead of lions and
elephants, has thrown a flood of light on this
subject and cleared up almost all doubtful points, so
that we are now as well informed concerning
these man-apes of equatorial Africa as we were
with regard to the hippopotamus and giraffe
before they had been domesticated in our Zoological
Gardens.

The unhealthy swamps on the shores of
Africa south of the Guinea coast, and the
country back towards the interior for a narrow
strip of some sixty or seventy miles, is the home
at once of the most degraded and fiercest of all
human tribes, and of the apes that approximate
most nearly to the human type. Not only have
we there the fierce gorilla, the most powerful of
the four-handed animals, but a strict vegetarian,
and mischievous only for amusement, but also
the fiercest of bipeds, animals called men, who
are dependent on human flesh for their daily
meals. The author, who describes to us the
gorilla as the most hellish and fearful-looking
monster that could be conceived, states that in
the native African village he entered after
bagging his first specimen of man-ape, he met a
woman who " bore with her a piece of the thigh
of a human body, just as we should go to the
market and carry thence a steak." After being
introduced to the authorities of the village, he
was conducted to a house where he slept, and,
on going out next morning, he noticed a pile of
ribs, leg and arm bones, and skulls (all human),
piled up at the back of the premises, this being
the accumulation, we are led to suppose, of the
waste of such food as ordinarily came to hand.
Such was Mr. du Chaillu's introduction to Gorilla-
land, and so low does human nature seem to
have sunk where it makes its nearest approach
to the brute.

Three species, all of very large dimensions,
and each having some well-marked peculiarity of
form and habits, have been added to the
naturalist's list by the traveller we have just
named. Of these the gorilla takes the first rank,
although this and perhaps all of them have been
vaguely alluded to in earlier descriptions of
travellers before they were examined and their
habits made out by the naturalist.

Up to the publication of Mr. du Chaillu's
book, the chimpanzee of Western Africa, the
orang-outang of Borneo, and the pongo from
Batavia, were the only large apes of which any
accurate account had been given, so that he at
once doubles the stock of knowledge in this
important department of natural history.

It may seem singular that animals which are
certainly very common on and near the coast of
Africa should have remained so long unknown
to the multitude of persons who have for
centuries traded in the immediate vicinity. But
the swamps of a tropical river are not frequently
visited out of curiosity, and had it not been that
Mr. du Chaillu was born and bred in African
malaria, it may be doubtful whether he would
have returned to tell his tale.

The gorilla, in the judgment of Mr. du Chaillu,
and, we believe, in the opinion of all who have
seen the skin, the stuffed animal, or the drawings
of the living animal, or who have carefully
read the accounts that are given of him, would
certainly bear away the palm of ugliness from
all living creatures. Like all the monkey tribe,
the fore extremities, or arms, are long and
muscular in proportion to the hinder extremities, or
legs, and the latter terminate with true hands,
provided with opposing thumbs instead of feet
and toes.*

* All the apes are four-handed, and are thus
equally distinguished from the human race, with
their two hands and two feet, and from quadrupeds,
or four-footed beings.

Standing on its hinder extremities which
appears to be its usual posture when on the
ground and not in actual motion a large male
gorilla attains a height of five feet nine inches,
or perhaps occasionally more; but, in
consequence of the vast size of the body and the
unusual proportions, the animal looks to be much
taller than he really is. The spread of the arms
of such an individual is nine feet, and the cir-
cumference of the chest upwards of five feet.
The hands are terrible claw-like weapons, with
one blow of which the creature can tear out the
bowels of a man, or break his arms. Both
hands and arms possess immense muscular
development. The feet, or rather foot-hands, are
of corresponding size and strength, the great toe
measuring six inches in circumference, this
being also the size of the middle finger of the
hand at the first joint. The fingers are all
short, and the nails short, thick, and strong, and
often worn, but they are shaped like those of
man. The head is almost as wide as it is long,
and nearly of human proportions; and the foot,
although wider in proportion than ours, and
distinctly hand-like, is still more like the human
foot than that of the other apes. Owing to its
weight and habits of feeding the animal does
not seem often to inhabit or even climb trees.

The head of the gorilla does not approach
very nearly even to the lowest negro or Australian
type of the human head, either in the form
of the skull or capacity of brain, for the skull
recedes further back, the facial angle different,
and the brain barely half the weight. This
baboon-like character, the form of the face,
and its hairy covering, the deep-set eyes, the
muscular development of the cheeks, and the
projecting canine teeth, all combine to render
the animal extremely frightful. When meeting
an enemy, "the grey eyes sparkle out with
gloomy malignity, the features are contorted in
hideous wrinkles, and the slight, sharply-cut
lips, drawn up, reveal the long fangs and the
powerful jaws, in which a human limb would be
crushed as a biscuit." The vast paunch, swelled
with berries and other vegetable food, protrudes
before the animal in walking, and adds to the
Bideousness of its appearance, which is not
improved by the iron-grey hair covering its black
skin.

Gorillas are only met with in the darkest and