CHAPTER II.

THE MAN-SHAPED APES (_continued_)--THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ--THE KOOLO-KAMBA--THE SOKO--THE CHIMPANZEE.

THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ--Its Nests and Habits--A Specimen Shot--Differences between it and the Gorilla--Structural Peculiarities--THE KOOLO-KAMBA--Meaning of the Name--Discovered by Du Chaillu--Its Outward Appearance and Anatomy--THE SOKO--Discovered by Livingstone--Hunting the Soko--THE CHIMPANZEE--In Captivity--On board Ship--A Young Chimpanzee--The Brain and Nerves--Anatomical Peculiarities--General Remarks upon the Group.

THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ.[8]

This great Ape, which attains the height of four feet, and has a spread of arms of seven feet, was discovered by Du Chaillu in the Gaboon district. It is remarkable for building very comfortable shelters, and this led to its being found; for Du Chaillu, in one of his excursions, was trudging along, rather tired of sport, when he saw a most singular-looking shelter built on the branches of a tree. He thought it had been made by the natives, and asked whether the hunters had the habit of sleeping in the woods, but was told, to his great surprise, that it was a nest built by the Nschiego Mbouvé, an Ape. Moreover, one of the natives told him that it was a curious creature, which had a bald head.

Many of the nests were seen subsequently, and it was noticed that they were generally built about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, and invariably on a tree which stands slightly apart from others, and which had no lower bough beneath the shelter. Occasionally they are to be seen at the height of fifty feet; and it would appear that the altitude has something to do with the dread of the few flesh-eating and destructive beasts, such as the Leopard. The loneliest parts of the forest are chosen, for the animal is shy, and is very rarely seen, even by the negroes. The materials for the nest consist of leafy branches, and are collected by the male and the female also, who tie them together, and to the tree, very neatly with twigs of the vine. The roof is so well constructed that it closely resembles human work, and it throws off the rain admirably, for it is neatly rounded at the top. During its construction, the female gathers the branches and vines, whilst the male builds; but afterwards they do not occupy the same shelter, the male making another close by in a neighbouring tree. The roof, which is usually some six or eight feet in diameter, is more or less dome-shaped, or something like an extended umbrella; and the Nschiego gets under it and clasps the tree, or squats on a bough, so that its head is just beneath the under surface. The nests are not occupied permanently, and usually for not more than eight or ten days, for the Apes, living upon wild berries of a certain kind, select spots where they are plentiful, and leave them when the store is exhausted. Du Chaillu never saw many nests together, and he does not think the animals live in troops, but only in pairs. Sometimes a solitary nest is seen, inhabited by a Nschiego, whose silvery hair denotes its age, and probably its desire for solitude after a long and troublous life.

Being desirous of obtaining one of these shelter makers, as they were evidently new to science, Du Chaillu took every precaution to surprise his prey; but it is best to tell the story in his own words:--

“We travelled with great caution, not to alarm our prey, and had a hope that, by singling out a shelter, and waiting till dark, we should find it occupied. In this hope we were not disappointed. Lying quite still in our concealment (which tried my patience sorely), we at last, just at dusk, heard the peculiar ‘Hew, hew, hew,’ which is the call of the male to his mate. We waited till it was quite dark, and then I saw what I had so longed all the weary afternoon to see. A Nschiego was sitting in his nest. His feet rested on the lower branch, his head reached quite into the little dome of the roof, and his arm was clasped firmly round the tree-trunk. This is their way of sleeping. After gazing till I was tired through the gloom at my sleeping victim, two of us fired, and the unfortunate beast fell at our feet without a struggle, or even a groan. We built a fire at once, and made our camp in this place, that when daylight came I might first of all examine and skin my prize. The poor Ape was hung up to be out of the way of insects, and I fell asleep on my bed of leaves and grass, as pleased a man as the world could well hold. Next morning I had leisure to examine the Nschiego.

“I was at once struck with points of difference between it and the Chimpanzee. It was smaller, and had a bald black head. This is its distinctive character. This specimen was three feet eleven inches high, or long. It was an adult. Its skin, where there is no hair, is black, and the thick breast and abdomen are covered with short and rather thin blackish hairs. On the lower part of the abdomen the hair is thinnest, but this is not perceived unless looked at carefully, as the skin is the colour of the hair. On the legs the hair is of a dirty grey, mixed with black. The shoulders and back have black hair between two and three inches long, mixed with a little grey. The arms down to the wrist have also long black hair, but shorter than in the Gorilla. The hair is blacker, longer, glossier, and thinner in general than that on the Gorilla, and the skin is not so tough. I noticed that the bare places, where the hair is worn off by contact with hard substances in sleeping, were different from the bare places which are so conspicuous on the common Chimpanzee.

“It is not as powerful an animal as the Gorilla, its chest is not so large, but the arms and fingers are a little longer, and this is the case with the toes also. The nose is not so prominent, but the mouth is wider and the ears are larger. Its chin is rounder, and has more small hairs, and the side of the face is thinly covered with hair, commencing about the middle of the ear, and these would seem to be signs of an incipient beard and whiskers. The lower parts of the body are bare, and the skin is white there.”

Apparently the disposition and temper of the Nschiego are better than those of the Gorilla; it is less ferocious, and is even docile in captivity. It has not the hideous expression of the great Ape, for there is something of a forehead above the ridge of the eyebrow, and there are no great crests on the head, which is rounder than that of the Gorilla. The teeth are rather smaller, but are of the same number. The height is less than that of the female Gorilla, as a rule; and the male of this bald kind is larger than its female; whilst the little young ones differ in their colour from both, being white. Finally, it would appear that there are hard callous pads on the back of the fingers, that the hand is larger than the feet, and that the tips of the fingers reach a little below the knee. Associated with the Gorilla and with the Chimpanzee in the forests of Equatorial Western Africa, the Bald-headed Troglodyte appears to have a restricted geographical range, and not to be found over so large a district as its companions, for it was only met with on the table-lands of the interior, and in the densest forests.

Subsequently Du Chaillu had a good opportunity of substantiating his statements about the nests.

“On our way down, at sunset of the third day, we heard the call of a Nschiego Mbouvé (_Troglodytes calvus_). I immediately caused my men to lie down, and was just getting into a hiding-place myself, when I saw, in the branches of a tree at a little distance, the curious nest or bower of this Ape; hard by, on another tree, was another shelter. We crept up within shot of this nest, and then waited, for I was determined to see once more the precise manner in which this animal goes to rest. We lay flat on the ground, and covered ourselves with leaves and bush, scarcely daring to breathe, lest the approaching animal should hear us. From time to time I heard the calls. There were evidently two, probably male and female. Just as the sun was setting, I saw an animal approach the tree. It ascended by a hand-over-hand movement, with great rapidity, crept carefully under the shelter, seated itself on the crotch made by a projecting bough, its feet and haunches resting on this bough; then it put one arm about the trunk of the tree for security.

“Thus, I suppose, they rest all night; and this posture accounts for some singular abrasions of hair on the side of the Nschiego Mbouvé. At a little distance off I saw another shelter made for the mate. No sooner was it seated than it began again to utter its call. It was answered; and I began to have the hope that I should shoot both animals, when an unlucky motion of one of my men roused the suspicions of the Ape in the tree. It began to prepare for descent, and, unwilling to risk the loss of this one, I fired. It fell to the ground dead. It proved to be a male, with the face and hands entirely black. As we were not in haste, I made my men cut down the trees which contained the nests of these Apes. I found them made precisely as I have before described, and as I have always found them, of long branches and leaves, laid one over the other very carefully and thickly, so as to render the structure capable of shedding off water. The branches were fastened to the tree in the middle of the structure by means of wild vines and creepers, which are so abundant in these forests. The projecting limb on which the Ape perched was about four feet long. There remains no doubt in my mind that these nests are made by the animal to protect it from the nightly rains. When the leaves begin to dry to that degree that the structure no longer throws off water, the owner builds a new shelter, and this happens generally once in ten or fifteen days. At this rate the Nschiego Mbouvé is an animal of no little industry.”

The differences between the outside appearance and the intelligence and temper of this Bald-headed Ape and those of the Gorilla are accompanied by certain internal ones. A careful examination of the skull of the Tschiégo, as its clever French describer, Duvernay, calls it, shows that it has smaller ridges, a less prominent muzzle, and a wider and shorter roof of the mouth than the Gorilla. The last of the upper crushing, or back teeth, is the smallest. In the Gorilla they are nearly equal in size. The lower jaw in the Nschiego has three nearly equal-sized molar or back teeth, and the first and the second have five projections or cusps, but the last has only four. In the Gorilla it has five cusps. These minute differences are probably constant, and therefore must not be passed over, although they may seem to be of no importance to the creatures. But the classification of animals can only depend upon the presence or absence of structural peculiarities; and when such and such a structure exists in one, and not in another, they cannot both be of the same kind. According to the relation of the structure to the life, and according to its being constantly found, so is it important in deciding whether the “kind” is a species, or a mere variety or race.

The great distinction between the two animals is that the Nschiego’s forehead, formed by the frontal bone, rises up from the great brow ridge, and is visible from the front. This is not the case with the Gorilla, whose forehead recedes greatly. Both animals have the same number of ribs (thirteen), but those of the Nschiego are more man-shaped and are not so broad and close together; and their chests differ in breadth, for the breast-bone of the new Ape is narrower, but it is long and thick. The blade-bone, so important to the Gorilla, is equally so to the Nschiego, but it is longer and narrower on the back, and its spine is very oblique. Possibly this conformation of the bone may have to do with the constant climbing of the Bald-headed Ape, but nevertheless the spines on the neck-bones, which give origin to such exceedingly strong muscles in the Gorilla, are much smaller in the Nschiego. The first neck-bone, or atlas, has no spine in this Ape, in which it is like man, and the axis, or second, has a forked spine, and is crested at the end, but otherwise is like that in man.

Finally, the rudiment of a tail is like that end of the back-bone found in the Gorilla and in man.

These are the principal points and the most important distinctions; they show that the Nschiego cannot be of the same kind or species as the Gorilla, but is a Troglodyte, resembling the Gorilla somewhat in its skeleton, and although smaller than the male, still quite, if not more, man-shaped.

The London Zoological Society own a fine example of the Bald-headed Chimpanzee (_Anthropopithecus calvus_), which, under the name of “Sally,” is known to every frequenter of their famous Gardens, where it has resided since October, 1883.

THE KOOLO-KAMBA.[9]

This kind of Troglodyte is celebrated for saying koola-koolo over and over again as its favourite cry, for having a very extraordinary frog-like figure, and for being one of those creatures which are exceedingly interesting to zoologists, because they are, as it were, half one thing and half another.

A neighbour of the great Apes already noticed, it associates also with the common Chimpanzee, in the quiet forests of Western Equatorial Africa. In one of these Du Chaillu first saw it, and he describes his discovery as follows:--

“We had hardly got clear of the Bashikoway ants and their bites when my ears were saluted by the singular cry of the Ape I was after. ‘Koola-koolo! koola-koolo!’[10] it said several times. Gambo and I raised our eyes, and saw, high up on a tree-branch, a large Ape. We both fired at once, and the next moment the poor beast fell to the ground with a heavy crash. I rushed up, anxious to see if, indeed, I had a new animal. I saw in a moment that it was neither a Nschiego Mbouvé, nor a Chimpanzee, nor a Gorilla. Again I had a happy day--marked for ever with red ink in my calendar. We at once disembowelled the animal, which was a male. I found in its intestines only vegetable matter and remains. The skin and skeleton were taken into camp, where I cured the former with arsenic sufficiently to take it into Obindji. The animal was a full-grown male, four feet three inches high, and was less powerfully built than the male Gorilla, but as powerful as either the Chimpanzee or Nschiego Mbouvé. When it was brought into Obindji, all the people, and even Quenqueza, at once exclaimed, ‘That is a Koolo-Kamba.’ Then I asked them about the other Apes I already knew, but for these they had other names, and did not at all confound the species. For all these reasons I was assured that my prize was indeed a new animal; a variety, at least, of those before known. The Koolo-Kamba has several distinctive marks: a very round head, whiskers running quite round the face and below the chin; the face is round, the cheek-bones prominent, the eyes sunken, and the jaws not very prominent, less so than in any of the Apes. The hair is black and long on the arm, which was, however, partly bare. The Koolo is the Ape, of all the great Apes now known, which most nearly approaches man in the structure of its head; for the capacity of the cranium is somewhat greater, in proportion to the animal’s size, than in either the Gorilla or the Nschiego Mbouvé. Of its habits these people could tell me nothing, except that farther in the interior it was found more frequently, and that it was like the Gorilla, very shy and hard of approach.” They are rare animals, and Du Chaillu met with this one only; it was as large as a female Gorilla, and from its structure was evidently a great climber.

One was killed and sent over to Paris several years since, and its anatomy forms a great treatise by the distinguished men whose names are appended to its title, _Troglodytes Aubryi_.

They agree with Du Chaillu in his slight notice of its shape and peculiarities to a certain extent, and in his notice that the arms reach below the knee, that the shoulders are broad, and that the ears are large, but they give some very interesting descriptions of its strange characteristics. It has many points of resemblance with the Gorilla and many with the Nschiego, but it has others which cause it to be like the common Chimpanzee, and which show some likeness to the great Baboon. It fills up the gap in the animal scale between the Nschiego and Gorilla on the one hand, and the true Chimpanzee (_Troglodytes niger_) on the other; and were it not in existence, it would be necessary to divide these Apes into two groups or genera, to make, in fact, a genus Gorilla and a genus Troglodytes, the first to contain the Gorilla and Nschiego, and the last the Chimpanzee. They are all therefore linked together in one genus by it, that of _Troglodytes_.

The shape and the peculiar anatomy of the Koolo-Kamba are not simply curious and only interesting to those who study dry bones, for they have to do with its habits and mode of life, and their examination is full of instruction to those who like to understand causes and effects, and design in Nature. Much has been explained in the chapter on the Gorilla regarding the different parts of the body, and if that information is considered there will be no difficulty in comprehending all about the Ape now under consideration.

The shape of the body as a whole is admirably adapted for great powers of climbing and of exertion of the limbs, and these last are adapted for the same end in a manner surpassing the great Apes already described. But, moreover, the body is peculiarly suited, not for maintaining or often using the upright position or the legs, but for going on all-fours, like a Baboon or Dog. Doubtless the Gorilla and the Nschiego do often stand up for a short time, and their construction points at this being very possible, as their frame has a combination of structures for doing this and for climbing. Now the Koolo-Kamba must differ from them in its structure, for it requires those which enable it to invariably go on all-fours, and yet to climb better than the others.

It never wants to sit down, except with its knees drawn up to its nose, and it squats on its haunch bones (the tuberosities of the haunch--of the “_ischium_” bone).

The body is very ball-like, and there is no visible division between the chest, the stomach, and the hips; it is not troubled with a waist, and anything like one is positively below the hips, just over where the thighs join the body. In fact, as before noticed, the shape is that of a frog. There are no graceful curves to the back, and there is no “small” to it. On looking at the chest, it will be noticed that it is long behind and short in front; the ribs go down close to the edge of the hips; and in order that this extra stoutness and strength of loin shall be there, there are fourteen ribs, instead of thirteen, as in the other great Apes. The breast-bone in front sticks out, so that were the animal to lie on its stomach its point would lean on the ground, and not its front, as in us. This last peculiarity is an adaptation for going on all-fours. The absence of waist and the shape of the loins relate to the small size of one of the muscles of the back (sacro lumbalis), large and important in man.

The belly is very large, and it is kept from pushing into the chest by the capacity given to the space within the ribs and breast-bone, by a bulged-out state of the ribs at the back, and the projection of the breast-bone. Hence, the frog-like figure looks asthmatical; and as it is very high-shouldered, there is but little neck.

All this bulging has not only reference to the maintenance of the capacity of the lungs, and its independence of the great stomach, which, when full, would tend to press in all directions, but it enables the muscles of the back and shoulders, which have so much to do with climbing, to be large and vigorous. More space is afforded for the insertion or attachment of muscular fibres.

The blade-bone does not add to the bulk of the shoulders, for it is rather long and narrow for a great Ape; and its spine, which has so much to do with the muscles which lift up the arm, is very much aslant, and in the best direction for constant climbing, instead of much walking on the knuckles. And that climbing and holding on are the usual motions may be credited, it is only necessary to notice that the arms and the fingers are long, and that the tips of them touch below the knee when the skeleton is placed upright. Moreover, this great length is accompanied by corresponding strength, and also by a very curious condition of the hands.

The Koolo has a larger hand in relation to its breadth than the Gorilla, and there are no bunches of muscle forming rounded swellings or balls under the thumb and little finger. On the contrary, the long and narrow palm is, as it were, bent across, as if it could fit capitally on to a bough. There is no doubt that this Ape, like all the others, does a good deal of swinging, by holding on to boughs with its hands, when the arms are straight above the head; and that they move along a bough, or from tree to tree, in this position, without bending the elbow, and with considerable speed. This method of getting along may also be seen in Chimpanzees. Evidently the curved palm will be of immense advantage in such actions, and especially when it is combined, as it is in the Koolo-Kamba, with a slightly bent-downwards condition of the fingers. The bones (phalanges) of the fingers are long, and each is slightly curved, and not straight, as in man and the great Apes already noticed, so that their three bones, when in their proper position, are decidedly out of a straight line, and present a general curve, which is rendered all the more decided by the bend in the palm. All this is very useful for grasping and holding on. But it is not all; in man and the other great Apes, the wrist consists of two rows of small bones, one placed before the other: the first row is jointed to the bones of the fore-arm, at what is called the wrist-joint, which moves forwards and backwards as a hinge; and the second row is so jointed on the first row that there is no movement, and in front it is jointed to the bones of the palm, and to those of the thumb. Now in the Koolo the second row of wrist-bones--or as they are called from the Latin, _carpus_, a wrist--carpal bones _are movable_ on the first row, and muscular exertion can bend, not only the metacarpal bones and the fingers, but also the wrist-bones. Hence the hand is more movable in the bending direction than that of man, and the reason is because of the peculiar requirements of the creature’s life. The thumb is small, and only reaches the first joint of the forefinger: its tip can only touch the tip of one finger at a time, and not those of all, as in man, and therefore it is not of much use in distinguishing objects by touch; moreover, it cannot be stuck out far--and this is necessary, for in climbing its tip is required to be as close to the fingers as is possible. The muscles of the hands and arms resemble those of the Chimpanzee generally, and will be noticed in describing it.

When the Koolo-Kamba walks, it does so like the Gorilla, by leaning on the backs of its fingers, and hence it has callous pads on the back of their second bones. All the peculiar construction of the hands and wrist bears a relation to the vast muscular development of the muscles of the back of the chest and shoulders in the process of climbing; and it is to be observed, as it was in the instance of the Gorilla, that these muscles have more to do with such actions than those of the chest, which go to the arm, and which are so much used in man for that purpose. The muscles of the chest are not large and strong in the Apes, for, as has already been mentioned, they climb with the back of the hand towards the face, and do not attempt, like man, to lift the body with the palm and nails turned towards him. This last proceeding necessitates large chest muscles, and the former large ones at the back of the shoulders.

There is something remarkable about the haunch-bones, or those parts of them which support the body when sitting. In man they are well in front of the end of the back-bone, which tapers off and turns in a little, and forms a rudiment of a tail. These tuberosities of the haunch-bone (as they are called, because they are swollen out and flattened for the especial purpose in man) are placed, in the Koolo-Kamba, behind the end of the spine or the true rudiment of the tail, and this throws all the under parts backwards, giving the animal a thorough Baboon and animal character. Oddly enough, the rudiment of the tail in this Ape is smaller than in man.

A study of the foot shows that it is of immense use in holding on and in climbing, and of none in walking. It looks more like a small hand, furnished with a great thumb, than a foot with a toe-thumb.

It differs from human feet in the length of the toes, and this is rather an interesting artistic point, for there is some diversity in the opinions regarding which should be the longest toes in man.

The Greek statues--those grand models of the highest types of mankind--very constantly have the second toe the longest, and reaching more to the front, when the foot is on the ground, than the great toe and the third. Nowadays, after men have had their feet pinched, cabined, and confined in all sorts of boots and shoes, generation after generation it is wonderful that their toes should be of any shape at all; and, therefore, it must be anticipated that the Grecian type will not always prevail. Nevertheless, although the great toe is often the longest, the third toe never is, except there is some decided deformity, like double toes. It is, however, the third toe which is the longest in the Ape, just as the third finger of the hand is the longest in man; and hence the Ape’s foot, with its great thumb, is in this hand-like. But as has been mentioned before, bone for bone, and almost muscle for muscle, the human and Ape’s foot agree, and the hinder extremity of this last is really a foot with a toe-thumb.

On looking at the head of the Koolo, one is struck with the great ears, which are larger than those of the Apes already described, and almost as large as, but less detached, than those of the Chimpanzee. The skull is globular, and with a low contracted forehead receding behind the brow crests; but there are only faint ridges on its sides, although the muscles of the jaw are large, and they come from the sides of the skull. The head is very hairy, and the face, which is very prognathous (Greek, _gnathos_, jaw or mouth), or projecting in front, is black. It is rendered very tigerish and ugly by the flat nose merging into a wide, thick, projecting upper lip, without any furrow; and the mouth looks like a wide slit, there being no chin, on account of the pouting nature of the great lips.

Like the other Troglodytes, the Koolo-Kamba has great air sacs or throat pouches, which are hidden amongst the great muscles of the neck, and enter the organ of voice, or the larynx, between the upper and lower structures for the production of vocal sound. Their size and general nature may be satisfactorily compared with those of the Gorilla. (See page 22.)

Having something of a voice, this Ape has a better-formed palate than the others, and its tongue has not such a jumble of papillæ or little needle points on it as they have, for the larger cup-shaped ones are arranged at the back in the shape of the letter Y. The last molar tooth of the lower jaw has five cusps.

A huge eater of vegetable food, it requires a large stomach, and this has the two openings very close together, that is to say, the one for the passage of food in, and the other for the passage of food out, into the small gut. There is, as in all vegetarians by nature, a large great intestine, enormous, in fact, and this ends, as in man, in a blind gut with an appendix. The cause of all this is that vegetable food does not contain much available nourishment, and large portions of it must come in contact with the mucous or absorbing membrane of the stomach and bowels, in order that a proper quantity of nutritious matter may be absorbed, and be made into blood. The contrary is the case in flesh-eating animals, whose food contains a high percentage of nourishment; for in them the stomach and intestines are small, the surface required not being great, and nature is wonderfully economical.

THE SOKO.

This animal, both as regards its name, description, and habits, we owe to Livingstone; and the stories which he heard of it from the natives, in the strange country to the west of the great lake Tanganyika, must have wiled away many a weary hour during his ill-health and gradual loss of energy.

The first notice of it is curious, and occurs in his “Last Journals.” They were in want of rain, and he writes:--“A Soko, alive, was believed to be a good charm for rain, so one was caught; and the captor had the ends of two fingers and toes bitten off. The Soko, or Gorilla, always tries to bite off these parts, and has been known to overpower a young man, and leave him without the ends of fingers and toes. I saw the nest of one; it was a poor contrivance--no more architectural skill shown than in the nest of our cushat dove.” Here the consideration of this creature might have ended, for Livingstone terms it a Gorilla, but this name, like that of Pongo, is evidently given to all great African Apes with bad characters, and moreover, as will be noticed presently, when one of the illustrious traveller’s native companions came to England, and was shown a stuffed Gorilla, he decided that it was not the same thing as the Soko.

In another part of his Journal Livingstone returns to the Soko, which he still calls the Gorilla; but in the drawings given it evidently is not one, and is neither as large in its body nor as ugly in the face; moreover, the large ears would cause it to be considered, were there not other reasons, as one of the true Chimpanzees, or _Troglodytes niger_.

The following extracts from Livingstone possess undoubted interest:--

“24th August.--Four Gorillas or Sokos were killed yesterday; an extensive grass-burning forced them out of their usual haunt, and coming on the plain they were speared. They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady the body. When seen thus the Soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ‘dear,’ but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentleman in him. Other animals, especially the Antelopes, are graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion; the natives also are well made, lithe and comely to behold; but the Soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil. He takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and faint apology for a beard; the forehead, villainously low, with high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development. The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow; and the eagerness with which the Manyuema devour it, leaves the impression that eating Sokos was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals; they say the flesh is delicious. The Soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work; kidnapping children, and running up trees with them, he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that, drops the child; the young Soko, in such a case, would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and naked, when a Soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go; another man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a Soko; it seized the spear, and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his companions, ‘Soko has caught me!’ The Soko bit off the ends of his fingers, and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarré.”

“The Soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one can stalk him in front without being seen; hence, when shot, it is always in the back; when surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back too, otherwise he is not a very formidable beast. He is nothing, as compared in power of damaging his assailant, to a Leopard or Lion, but is more like a man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are long and formidable. Numbers of them came down in the forest, within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue like Fox-hounds; this is their nearest approach to speech. A man, hoeing, was stalked by a Soko, and seized; he roared out, but the Soko giggled and grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child, caught up by a Soko, is often abused by being pinched, and scratched, and let fall.”

“The Soko kills the Leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws and biting them, so as to disable them; he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the Leopard dies. At other times both Soko and Leopard die. The Lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him. The Soko eats no flesh; small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound, and of these one is like large sweet sop, but indifferent in taste. The Soko brings forth at times twins. A very large Soko was seen by Mohamad’s hunters, sitting picking his nails; they tried to stalk him, but he vanished. Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise as Sokos, and one was killed with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong, and fears guns, but not spears. He never catches women.”

“Sokos collect together, and make a drumming noise, some say with hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells, which are well imitated by the natives’ embryonic music. If a man has no spear, the Soko goes away satisfied; but if wounded, he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin; he draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood; he does not seek an encounter with an armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him. Manyuema say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’ They live in communities of about ten, each having his own female; an intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother.”

The “Last Journals” contains a portrait of a young Soko (reproduced on page 47), which shows a short-armed, weak-legged, long-eared creature; and in the engraving on page 48, the adults which are being hunted are certainly very much shorter than the natives who are killing them. All that can be said, then, is that possibly the Soko is a kind of Troglodyte, greatly resembling the kind we have next to notice; but its geographical range is most interesting. Its being found so many hundreds of miles from the Sierra del Crystal, and beyond the woods of the coast-living Chimpanzees, would appear to prove that formerly there were forest and jungle far away to the east, where there are now plains, rivers, and lakes with much forest land.

THE TRUE CHIMPANZEE.[11]

The name Chimpanzee has sometimes been given to all the great Apes just described, but reference has been made, in considering some points in their anatomy and habits, to a particular animal which bears this name. This one comes next to them in the descending order of the scale of beings, and completes the number of the kinds of these man-shaped Apes of Equatorial Africa. It is the animal, the young of which have frequently been brought to England, where they have been celebrated for their gentle fun, romping play, good climbing, and their ability to imitate many human habits--clothes-wearing, tobacco-smoking, and tea-drinking especially. It is the Chimpanzee of Chimpanzees, the young of which have such very human-looking faces and most baby-like skulls. Being covered for the most part, and especially on the top and sides of the head, with long black hairs, it is called the Black Chimpanzee, or _Troglodytes niger_.

It was a sight worth seeing to be present in the Monkey House of the Zoological Gardens, in London, when the keeper paid an early morning visit to his attached friend, the Chimpanzee. If he was not quite awake, or lazily inclined, and snugly covered up in his little wooden house, and the keeper called him, a commotion was heard inside, and then a round little figure with a large head came tumbling out, and rushed to the iron wicket. He creeps along at a great rate on all-fours, but the body is half erect, for the fore limbs are long, and the knuckles, or rather the back parts of the second joints of the fingers, are allowed to touch the ground and support the frame in front, whilst the elbows are kept straight. The hind legs, being short, move one after the other as in a canter, and it is readily noticed that although the feet touch the ground on their outer edges they can rest flat on the soles.

There is much joyful recognition, and after he has put his arms around the keeper’s neck, he enjoys being tickled and laid on his back in the straw. Making grunts and little laughs, he shows his fine set of teeth, and his fine hazel-coloured eyes twinkle with fun. Then he rushes off, tumbling head over heels, scampers over the straw, and with a jump clasps one of the horizontal wooden bars in the cage, and swings himself up and on to it with an ease and grace which many a gymnast might envy. Running along this, and just balancing himself with the assistance of the back of his hand, he nears a rope, and then, after seizing it, swings with arms out at full length, now catching hold of others or of the wire lattice-work with his feet and toe-thumb, or suddenly coming to the ground with a great bounce. This is usually preparatory to coming to the spectators, and he then squats down, folds his arms, and moves his shoulders from side to side in a quick and restless manner. Another scamper brings him to his house on the ground-floor, into which he looks, and then taking a lot of biscuit, he gives a jump on to its shelving top, sits down, and begins to eat. He sits upright enough, and puts the biscuit into his mouth, but rather clumsily. He does not take it between the tips of his fingers and the thumb, but between the thumb and the side of the first finger, for the thumb is short. Hence, as the food disappears, he appears to be cramming the knuckle of his first finger into his mouth.[12]

One is struck with the colour of the face, which is nearly hairless, for the tint of its skin is a dirty yellow-ochre; but it is relieved by the beautiful white teeth, the hazel eyes, and the long hair which comes down from the top of the head in front of the ear like a lock. The upper lip has no furrow running down from the small and flat nose, but it is very large, and the mouth looks like a slit in the face when both lips are together. He has distinct eyelids; and when he sits and looks forwards, the chin reaches below the top of the breast and hides the neck. The palm of the hands is flesh-coloured, or darker, and the foot looks very strange, for the hair is long over the ankle and very black, and it ceases suddenly, so that the heel and all the sides and the sole are naked and flesh-tinted. The absence of hair on the face--there being a little straggling beard only--is possibly an ornament, and it is noticed in many Monkeys; but its absence from the under part of the hand and foot, of course, is of use, for it gives a greater power of grasp and a finer sense of touch. The front hair comes to a peak over the forehead, and the curve on either side is as graceful as that of a Queen’s Counsel’s wig; then it covers a broad low head, which looks very big behind and decidedly over-burdened with two great ears, larger than those of the Gorilla, and which are close neighbours to the high shoulders. Long black hair, with the ears peering through, covers all the back and sides of the head and the wide shoulders and very short neck, and is continued down the back, which shows no sign of a waist, and only becomes smaller just above the thighs. Here, then, is another instance of the frog-like body shape, and it is produced by the same general internal arrangements which have been noticed in the great Apes already described. That is to say, large lungs, and a great stomach and digestive apparatus, are more important than a slim and elegant figure; and good short back-bones, and at least thirteen ribs on each side are more satisfactory possessions in an African forest than long bones and a weak spine.

The arm, fore-arm, and fingers, as a limb, are long, and the tips of the fingers reach just below the knee. This is consistent with the scheme of the construction of the animal, and its adaptation for the forest life, which requires the ability to move rapidly and also to climb very easily. The arms are in constant movement when the Chimpanzee is walking, and if they are not assisting in the motion they are uplifted, the head being, moreover, carried a little forward with regard to the body. When the hands clasp a cross-bar, the little use of the small thumb is readily noticed, and the body is allowed to swing, as it were, at the full length of the arms, the thumb not assisting in holding on. But when it climbs a pole, it grasps just like a man under the same circumstances, and the thumb partly encircles the wood. It is very curious to feel the grasp of the hand, and the vigorous squeeze that the foot can give, and to look at the palms and soles. The palms seem very wrinkled across, but not to have a ball under the thumb of any size, and they seem narrow for their length. But although this is the case, and the thumb is short, they assist in grasping very forcibly. All the fingers and the thumbs have flat nails on them, which do not approach the character of a claw, and corresponding nails are found on the feet. All the heel is naked, as if it came through a hole in a stocking of black hair; and as a whole, the foot is shorter than the hand, the third toe being the longest. The toe-thumb is easily movable, and assists in climbing, for it grasps with the aid of the other toes very readily. Like the other large Apes already mentioned, it has no calf, and the legs seem to be too small for it, and to be stuck on to the body by small hips. The roundness behind is wanting, and therefore the muscles which particularly assist in the erect position are not large, as in man.

Yet at first sight there is something very human about the Chimpanzee; it looks like a very old child, and doubtless this is increased by its gentle habits and amiability; and there is every apology to be made for the early geographers and anatomists, who called it the “Pigmie.”

One of the first living Chimpanzees which was brought to England took strange dislikes to people. When it was brought on board the ship it would give its hand to be shaken by some, but refused it to others of the sailors with marks of anger, and it speedily became very familiar with the crew, except with a boy, to whom it never became reconciled. When the seamen’s mess was brought on deck, it was a constant attendant; it would go round and embrace each person, while it uttered loud yells, and then seated itself to enjoy the repast. If it was pleased at any favourite morsel, or if a piece of sweetmeat was given to it, satisfaction was expressed by a sound like a “hem,” in a grave tone; but if it was made angry or vexed, it would bark like a dog or cry like a child, and scratch itself most vehemently. It was active and cheerful in warm latitudes, but it became languid as it left the Torrid Zone, so that a blanket had to be given it as the English Channel was reached.

Bamboo, a Chimpanzee, once in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, Regent’s Park, and the subject of the following sketch, by Lieut. Sayers, “was purchased from a Mandingo, at Sierra Leone, who related that he had captured him in the Bullom country some months before, having first shot the mother, on which occasions the young ones never fail to remain by their wounded parents. On becoming mine, he was delivered over to a black boy, my servant, and in a few days became so attached to him as to be exceedingly troublesome, screaming and throwing himself into the most violent passion if he attempted to leave him for a moment. He evinced also a most strange affection for clothes, never omitting an opportunity of possessing himself of the first garment he came across, whenever he had the means of entering my apartment. He carried it immediately to the piazza, where invariably he seated himself on it with a self-satisfied grunt; nor would he resign it without a hard fight, and, on being worsted, exhibited every symptom of the greatest anger. Observing this strange fancy, I procured him a piece of cotton cloth, which, much to the amusement of all who saw him, he was never without, carrying it with him wherever he went, nor could any temptation induce him to resign it even for a moment. Totally unacquainted with their mode of living in the wild state, I adopted the following method of feeding him, which has appeared to succeed admirably. In the morning, at eight o’clock, he received a piece of bread, about the size of a halfpenny loaf, steeped in water or milk and water; about two, a couple of bananas or plantains; and before he retired for the night, a banana, orange, or slice of pine-apple. The banana appeared to be his favourite fruit; for it he would forsake all other viands, and if not gratified, would exhibit the utmost petulance. On one occasion I deemed it necessary to refuse him one, considering that he had already eaten a sufficiency, upon which he threw himself into the most violent passion, and uttering a piercing cry, knocked his head with such violence against the wall as to throw himself on his back, then ascending a chest which was near, wildly threw his arms into the air and precipitated himself from it. These actions so alarmed me for his safety that I gave up the contest, and on doing so he evinced the greatest satisfaction at his victory, uttering for several minutes the most expressive grunts and cries; in short, he exhibited, on all occasions when his will was opposed, the impatient temper of a spoilt child; but even in the height of passion I never observed any disposition to bite or otherwise ill-treat his keeper or myself.

“Although he would never object to be caressed or nursed by even a stranger, yet I never saw him evince the slightest disposition to make the acquaintance of any other animal. At the time he came into my possession I had two Patas Monkeys, and thinking they might become acquainted, I placed Mr. Bamboo in the same apartment, where he resided for five months, yet I never saw the least desire on his part to become even friendly; on the contrary, he showed evident anger and dislike at their approach. This strange attachment to the human race, and manifest dislike to all others, I have considered one of the most extraordinary features of this genus. His cunning was also remarkable. On all occasions when he thought he was unobserved, he would not fail to steal everything within his reach, for no other apparent purpose than to gratify a propensity for thieving; did he, however, even think you were looking at him, he would wait his opportunity with the greatest patience before he commenced depredation. In his habits, unlike the Monkey tribe, he was exceedingly cleanly, never soiling his bed or any place near it; and even on board ship (during the warm weather) he never failed to seek the deck, unassisted, whenever time calls of nature required it. On being left by himself in his piazza he would invariably seat himself on the window-sill, which was the highest point he could attain, and commanded a view of the barrack-yard as well as the interior of my bedroom; but at sunset he would descend, enter a washing-tub, which he had of his own accord chosen as a sleeping-place, and remain there all night; as soon, however, as the sun rose, he would never fail to occupy his favourite position on the window-ledge. From this, I should say, that trees are ascended by the Chimpanzee merely for observation or food, and that they live principally on the ground. Bamboo, at the time of purchase, appeared to be about fourteen months old, and from what I could learn from the natives, they do not reach their full growth till between nine and ten years of age; which, if true, brings them extremely near the human species, as the boy or girl of West Africa, at thirteen or fourteen years old, is quite as much a man or woman as those of nineteen or twenty in our more northern clime. Their height, when full grown, is said to be between four and five feet; indeed, I was credibly informed that a male Chimpanzee, which had been shot in the neighbourhood and brought into Free Town, measured four feet five inches in length, and was so heavy as to form a very fair load for two men, who carried him on a pole between them. The natives say that in their wild state their strength is enormous, and that they have seen them snap boughs off the trees with the greatest apparent ease, which the united strength of two men could scarcely bend. The Chimpanzee is, without doubt, to be found in all the countries, from the banks of the Gambia in the north to the kingdom of Congo in the south, as the natives of all the intermediate parts seem to be perfectly acquainted with them. From my own experience, I can state that the low shores of the Bullom country, situated on the northern shores of the river near Sierra Leone, are infested by them in numbers quite equal to the commonest species of Monkeys. I consider these animals to be gregarious; for when visiting the rice farms of the Chief Dalla Mohammadoo, on the Bullom shore, their cries plainly indicated the vicinity of a troop, as the noise heard could not have been produced by less than eight or ten of them. The natives also affirmed that they always travel in strong bodies, armed with sticks, which they use with much dexterity. They are exceedingly watchful; and the first one who discovers the approach of a stranger utters a protracted cry, much resembling that of a human being in the greatest distress. The first time I heard it I was much startled; the animal was apparently not more than thirty paces distant, but had it been but five I could not have seen it, from the tangled nature of the jungle, and I certainly conceived that such sounds could only have proceeded from a human being, who hoped to gain assistance by his cries from some terrible and instant death. The native who was with me laid his hand upon my shoulder, and pointing suspiciously to the bush, said, ‘Massa, Baboo live there!’ and in a few minutes the wood appeared alive with them, their cries resembling the barking of dogs. My guide informed me that the cry first heard was to inform the troop of my approach, and that they would all immediately leave the trees, or any exalted situation that might expose them to view, and seek the bush; he also showed evident fear, and entreated me not to proceed any further in that direction. The plantations of bananas, pampaws, and plantains, which the natives usually intermix with their rice, constituting the favourite food of the Chimpanzee, account for their being so frequent in the neighbourhood of rice fields. The difficulty of procuring live specimens of this genus arises principally, I should say, from the superstitions of the natives concerning them, who believe they possess the power of ‘witching.’”

A most interesting little male Chimpanzee was obtained from the natives of the Gambia coast some years since, and became famous in London for its great intelligence and human-like conduct. His mother was shot when he was about a twelvemonth old, about 120 miles from the sea; and after being well taken care of he was sent to England on board ship, where he had a free range of the rigging and decks, and where he made himself much liked. A distinguished zoologist, Mr. Broderip, visited him in the Zoological Gardens after he had undergone some tuition, and describes what he saw as follows:--

“I saw him for the first time in the kitchen belonging to the keepers’ apartments, dressed in a little Guernsey shirt, or banyan jacket. He was sitting child-like in the lap of a good old woman, to whom he clung whenever she made show of putting him down. His aspect was mild and passive, but that of a little withered old man, and his large eyes, hairless and crimpled visage, and man-like ears, surmounted by the black hair of his head, rendered the resemblance very striking, notwithstanding the depressed nose and the projecting mouth. He had already become very fond of his good old nurse, and she had evidently become attached to her nursling, although they had only been acquainted for three or four days, and it was with difficulty that he permitted her to go away to do her work in another part of the building. On her lap he was perfectly at his ease, and it seemed to me that he considered her as occupying the place of his mother. He was constantly reaching up with his hand to the fold of her neckerchief, though when he did so she checked him, saying, ‘No, Tommy, you must not pull the pin out.’ When not otherwise occupied, he would sit quietly in her lap, pulling his toes about with his fingers, with the same passive air as a human child exhibits when amusing himself in the same manner. I wished to examine his teeth; and when his nurse, in order to make him open his mouth, threw him back in her arm and tickled him just as she would a child, the caricature was complete.

“I offered him my ungloved hand. He took it mildly in his, with a manner equally exempt from forwardness and fear, examined it with his eyes, and perceiving a ring on one of my fingers, submitted that, and that only, to a very cautious and gentle examination with his teeth, so as not to leave any mark on the ring. I then offered him my other hand with the glove on. This he felt, looked at it, turned it about, and then tried it with his teeth. At length it became necessary for his kind nurse to leave him, and after much remonstrance on his part she put him on the floor. He would not leave her, however, and walked nearly erect by her side, holding by her gown just like a child. At last she got him away by offering him a peeled raw potato, which he ate with great relish, holding it in his right hand. His keeper, who is very attentive to him, then made his appearance, and spoke to him. Tommy evidently made an attempt to speak, gesticulating as he stood erect, protruding his lips, and making a hoarse noise like ‘hoo! hoo!’ He soon showed a disposition to play with me, jumping on his lower extremities opposite to me like a child, and looking at me with an expression indicating a wish for a game at romps. I confess I complied, and a capital game we had. On another occasion, and when he had become familiar with me, I caused, in the midst of his play, a looking-glass to be brought and held before him. His attention was constantly and strongly arrested: from the utmost activity he became immovably fixed, steadfastly gazing at the mirror with eagerness, and something like wonder depicted in his face. He at length looked up at me, then again gazed at the glass. The tips of my fingers appeared on one side as I held it; he put his hands and then his lips to them, then looked behind the glass, and finally passed his hands behind it, evidently to feel if there were anything substantial there. I presented him with a cocoa-nut, to the shell of which some bark was still adhering; the tender bud was just beginning to shoot forth--this he immediately bit off and ate. He then stripped off some of the bark with his teeth, moving it by the crust of adhering fibres round his head, darted it down, and repeatedly jumped on it with all his weight. A hole was bored in one of the eyes, and the nut again given to him, and he immediately held it up with the aperture downwards, applied his mouth to it, and sucked away at what milk there was with great glee. As I was making notes with a paper and pencil, he came up and looked at me inquisitively, testing the pencil with his teeth when he had it given to him. A trial was made of the little fellow’s courage; for when his attention was directed elsewhere, a hamper containing a large snake, called Python, was brought in and placed on a chair near the dresser. The lid was raised, and the basket in which the snake was enveloped was opened, and soon after Tommy came gambolling that way. As he jumped and danced along the dresser towards the basket he was all gaiety and life; suddenly he seemed to be taken aback, stopped, and cautiously advanced towards the basket, peered or rather craned over it, and constantly, with a gesture of horror and aversion and the cry of ‘hoo! hoo!’ recoiled from the detested object, jumped back as far as he could, and then sprang to his keeper for protection. Tommy does not like confinement, and when he is shut up in his cage, the violence with which he pulls at and shakes the door is very great, and shows considerable strength; but I have never seen him use this exertion against any other part of the cage, though his keeper has endeavoured to induce him to do so, in order to see whether he would make the distinction. When at liberty he is extremely playful; and in his high jinks, I saw him toddle into a corner where an unlucky bitch was lying with a litter of very young pups, and lay hold of one of them, till the snarling of the mother and the cries of the keeper made him put the pup down. He then climbed up to the top of the cage where the Marmosets were, and jumped furiously upon it, evidently to astonish the inmates, who huddled together, looking up at the dreadful creature over their heads. Then he went to a window, opened it and looked out. I was afraid that he might make his escape; but the words ‘Tommy, No!’ pronounced by the keeper in a mild but firm tone, caused him to shut the window and to come away. He is, in truth, a most docile and affectionate animal, and it is impossible not to be taken with the expressive gestures and looks with which he courts your good opinion, and throws himself upon you for protection against annoyance.”

Whether they grow cross and savage as they get old is not known, for no adults have been kept in captivity, but as this is usual in other Monkeys, it is probable that their interesting time of life is that of childhood, and that when the age of fun and tricks has passed there is not much else but brutality left.

Little or nothing reliable is known about the habits of the adults, and all the wickednesses of Gorillas and Baboons have been attributed to them, and, in fact, the very same stories will do for any one of them.

These stories have, however, been believed; and even Cuvier, the great comparative anatomist, wrote, that the Chimpanzees live in troops, construct themselves huts of leaves, arm themselves with sticks and stones, and employ these weapons to drive away men and Elephants from their dwellings. They did not, he believed, scruple to attack the Lion, and they were exceedingly impolite to negresses in general.

As they all, except possibly the Soko, live in a district where the forests are dense and close, there is no doubt they are rarely seen; and indeed reliable travellers do not hesitate to say that a white man has never seen them in a state of nature, except by obtaining a glance as they rush off on being surprised. All the stories must, therefore, be received with suspicion, as tainted with the results of African fear and love of the wonderful; especially as they come from the negro race living in the remarkable tract of country extending along the West Coast from the river Gambia to some distance north of Angola, and thence into the interior to the little known regions between the hills which run parallel with the sea many miles inland, and the country of the large lakes far away to the East.

Gifted with wonderful agility and no little power of imitation and intelligence, and possessed of very acute senses and ability to unite the actions of many groups of muscles to a common purpose, the Chimpanzee must have a well-formed nervous system--that is to say, a good brain and spinal cord. A brain to originate or commence actions, and the cord of nerves to carry the orders of the brain to the limbs. Measured over the brain case of the skull, that of the Chimpanzee has a bulk of about one-half of that of man, and less than that of the Gorilla; but the brain itself has striking resemblances to that of man. The principal folds which are noticed on the human brain exist in the Chimpanzee, but they are simpler in their foldings, and are large in proportion to the whole. This means that there is not as much nerve structure packed in a given space as there is in man; and the distinction is most important, for the greater the packing the greater the nervous energy and power. But the parts of the brain which have especially to do with the movements of the body, and their regulations and adaptations, are very well formed; and it is the comparative deficiency in those parts which have a mysterious relation with the intelligence, instinct, and the mind which causes the brain of the Chimpanzee to differ in appearance and size from that of man. But in both the brain proper over-laps and covers the cerebellum or little brain. The nerves are well formed and large.

It seems that the brain of the Chimpanzee never has a chance of increasing in size, for after a certain age the bones of the brain case become, as it were, soldered together.

The Chimpanzee has a famous pair of shoulders, a broad back, and, like the Gorilla, a very short neck. Its weight is less than that of the greatest of Apes, and therefore it does not require such huge muscles for climbing. The great bony spines of the neck-bones are smaller; and the bones of the upper part of the spine are not made as strongly.

Loving much to hang by the hands, with the arms stretched out above the head, the Chimpanzee has the blade-bone more like that of an ordinary Monkey, and less like that of man and the Gorilla, and its muscles are so placed as to permit of their acting readily when this position is kept up. As this position is extremely easy and useful, it is assisted by the animal’s having a short and stout collar-bone. Its arm-bone is tolerably near the length of that of man, but it is like a Gorilla’s in miniature. The bones of the fore-arm (the radius and ulna), instead of being shorter than the arm-bone, equal it in length, and the last named is much bent, so as to give a large surface for the muscles which supply the hand and wrist.

As a whole, the hand of the Chimpanzee is, in proportion to the size of the animal, larger than that of the Gorilla, but the thumb is shorter, and this makes it more Monkey-like than human; and the same may be said of the lower limbs, for the thigh-bone and those of the leg, although greatly resembling those of the Gorilla, have many peculiarities which make them resemble those of the less important Monkeys. Finally, with regard to the foot, that of the Chimpanzee is more Monkeyish than that of the Gorilla. The great Ape’s foot has many peculiarities which make it differ from that of man, and these are all magnified, as it were, in the Chimpanzee, whose foot, therefore, is all the more unlike ours. It is especially adapted for grasping and climbing, and less well suited for occasionally standing erect and walking. Its heel is short and slender, and the toe-thumb is smaller, and the whole foot is slenderer, than the Gorilla’s. Moreover, it is more turned in.

When young, there are no crests on the head, but with age a small one grows on each side in front, running from about the centre of each side of the brow ridge over the receding forehead, and joining together in the middle line, close to the top of the skull. This meets a larger and stronger one, which is a miniature of the head crest of the Gorilla, and which reaches from ear to ear. The use is probably for the attachment of the masticating muscles at the side, and for that of the muscles of the neck behind; but it is also a kind of ornament of the males.

Strong as this Ape is in its loins, from its extra ribs, the hip-bones seem narrow from side to side; and one of the causes of this is interesting, not only because it is also noticed in the other great Apes, but also because it is one of their marked distinctions from man.

The pieces of the back-bone (or vertebræ), as they pass between the hip-bones behind, unite them together, and degenerate until they form the curious little tail-end of the back-bone, which in us, and in the Apes, is curled slightly, with the concave part of the bend forward. The pieces unite strongly to each other above and below, and form really one bone, which is called the sacrum. Now, if these pieces were nearly or quite as stout and broad as those higher up, the hips would be wide apart; but if they become narrow, the hips will be all the closer together. In man, the pieces are broad, and the sacrum, as a whole, is so also, and the hips are widely separate; but the reverse is the case in the Apes.

This difference in the breadth of the bone and the width of the hip has evidently to do with the maintenance of the erect posture in man, and the inability to keep erect for long, and comfortably, by these great Apes. The larger the surface of the sacrum, the greater is the mass of muscle passing to the back and downwards; and this is small in comparison in the Chimpanzee.

Where the proper vertebræ of the sacrum end--that is to say, the pieces of the back-bone which are placed between the hip (ilium) bones--the tail begins. It is made up of three stunted bones, which are something like ill-made back-bone pieces (vertebræ); they are usually inseparably joined together to make a special bone, which is broad above, and tapering below. This bone, the rudiment of the tail, which, from some fancied resemblance to a Cuckoo’s back, has been called the cuckoo-bone (_os coccygis_), is covered by skin and embedded in muscles, which do not allow it to stick out visibly even as a stump; for its tip is curled inwards. This apology for the member which is so vastly important in many Monkeys is narrow in the man-like Apes, the black Chimpanzee included; but it is a little wider in man, although the general construction is the same. Could these bones--which, by their being united, form this rudiment of a tail--be disunited and increased in number, stuck out, and covered with skin and muscles, something like the very Monkey-like appendage would be formed. But noble tails are not the gifts of the higher Apes, as they are called, from their many points of resemblance in structure with man, and even in the smaller Monkeys they are extremely variable belongings, being given to one kind and not to another in a manner far beyond our philosophy.

The Chimpanzee has a long palate, like the other great Apes of the West African woods. Moreover, it has a uvula in the back of the throat, and the back of the tongue is marked with great papillæ, which take up the shape of a T. It does not do more than grunt “hem,” and bark after a fashion; and the use of some great air-pouches, which resemble those of the Gorilla, are therefore not very apparent. But the bony structures of the palate are interesting, for at the back of it they do not form a simple knob, as in the Gorilla, but resemble those of man, and there is a little prominence, with a festoon curve on each side.

It lives upon vegetable food, and its teeth are admirably suited for it; they are of the same number as those of the rest of the great man-shaped Apes, and do not differ very much from them. The front teeth are large, and project, and do not bite very up and down on the tips, so they wear behind quicker than in front, their general shape being rather peculiar and distinctive. Female Chimpanzees have smaller eye-teeth than the males, and all have them with a sharp edge behind, so that they can cut a pine-apple as well as pierce it. Behind them are the pre-and true molars, but the last tooth of the upper jaw looks small, for its hinder projections or cusps are small. In the lower jaw the last tooth has a fifth cusp, but it is smaller proportionately than in the lower Monkeys; and the first pre-molar has its front and outer angle stuck out very much after the fashion of the Baboons. Now these are little matters, which do not appear to have anything to do with causes and effects, the adaptation of means to ends, or which do not enable the creature to chew and crush its food a bit the less well, or better than others; they refer to some hidden mystery which unites apparently very different animals together in the scheme of creation. Thus the Chimpanzee has human-like, Gorilla-like, Baboon-like, and other Monkey-like peculiarities, so far as the teeth are concerned, and yet which do not interfere with the successful mastication of the food. We may make theories about them of supreme interest, which may explain why animals are alike and unlike, and how the structures of superior animals were foreshadowed in those of lower ones, and the structures of the latter in those of still simpler forms of life.

It is the great front teeth, the large space hidden by the visible nose, the prominent upper, and the great length of the lower jaw, which give such a Baboon-like appearance to the face of the Chimpanzee’s skull; and this is interesting, for there may have been a kinship between the two tribes.

These man-shaped Apes, the Gorilla, the Nschiego Mbouvé, the Koolo-Kamba, the Soko, and the Chimpanzee, form a group of beings which is peculiarly situated geographically, and which is separated from all others by anatomical differences. Their home is in Equatorial Africa, from the Western Sea to the Great Lakes near the eastern side of the Continent, and none of the kinds composing it have ever been found out of this range. Their bones have not been found in caves or in the state of fossils anywhere, so they must be regarded as essentially African. The group clings to forest and jungle, and its members lead very much the same kind of lives, for they are all vegetarians, liking quietude, and either roaming singly or in pairs, or living in troops. There is no evidence whatever that any of these species of Troglodytes have ever wandered; and it must be admitted that they have lived where they are now found ever since the country has been as it is, as regards its physical geography and peculiar climate. As regards their anatomical distinctness from other beings, they may be separated from man on the one hand, and from the Monkeys, which form the subject of the next chapters, on the other. They are linked together as a group by many resemblances in their construction, although there are differences enough to distinguish kind from kind. From man they one and all differ in the shape of the head, the size of the brain case, the nature of the palate, the shape of the jaws, and in the last lower molar teeth and tooth-spaces. Their head-ridges, the shape and length of their limbs, and the nature of their thumbs and toe-thumbs are very distinctive. The great air-pouches, the shape of the chest, the extra ribs, and the shape of the hip-girdle, cause them to differ much from man; and their brain is, as it were, dwarfed and infantile.[13]