Mr., Mrs., and Master Gorilla.
The reader will kindly bear in mind, when perusing my notes upon
the gorilla, that, as in the the case of the Fán cannibalism
described by the young French traveller, my knowledge of the
anthropoid is confined to the maritime region; moreover, that it
is hearsay, fate having prevented my nearer acquaintance with the
"ape of contention."
The discovery must be assigned to Admiral Hanno of Carthage, who,
about B. C. 500, first in the historical period slew the
Troglodytes, and carried home their spoils.
The next traveller who described the great Troglodytes of
equatorial Africa was the well-known Andrew Battel, of Leigh,
Essex (1589 to 1600); and his description deserves quoting. "Here
(Mayombo) are two kinds of monsters common to these woods. The
largest of them is called Pongo in their language, and the other
Engeco "(in the older editions "Encêgo" evidently Nchigo, 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.
Mr. W. Winwood Reade ("Savage Africa," chap, xix.) has done good
service by reprinting the letter of a Bristol trader on the west
coast of Africa, first published by Lord Monboddo ("Origin and
Progress of Language," vol. i. p. 281, 1774 to 1792). Here we
find distinct mention of three anthropoid apes. The first is the
"Impungu" (or pongo?), which walks upright, and is from seven to
nine feet high. The second is the "Itsena," evidently the Njína,
Njí, Nguyla, or gorilla; and thirdly is the "Chimpenza," our
Chimpanzee, a word corrupted from the Congoese Kampenzy,
including the Nchígo, the Kulu-Kamba, and other Troglodytes. I
have heard of this upright-walking Mpongo at Loango and other
places on the west coast of Africa, where the Njína is familiarly
spoken of, and it is not, methinks, impossible, that an ape even
larger than the gorilla may yet be found.
James Barbot ("A Voyage to Congo River," Churchill, vol. v. p.
512,) tells us in 1700 that the "kingdom of Angola, or Dongo,
produces many such extraordinary apes in the woods; they are
called by the blacks Quojas morrow, and by the Indians Orang-
outang, that is satyrs, or woodmen. . . . This creature seems to
be the very satyr of the ancients, written of by Pliny and
others, and is said to set upon women in the woods, and sometimes
upon armed men." Amongst these animals he evidently includes the
chimpanzee, as may be seen by his reference to the Royal
Exchange, London.
In 1776 the philosophical Abbé Proyart, in his excellent "History
of Loango," tells us (vide the chapter upon animals) that "there
are in the forests baboons four feet high; the negroes affirm
that, when they are hard pushed, they come down from the trees
with sticks in their hands to defend themselves against those who
are hunting them, and that very often they chase their pursuers.
The missionaries never witnessed this singularity." According to
the people, gorillas five or six feet tall have been seen as
lately as 1840 at "Looboo Wood," a well-known spot which we shall
presently sight, about three miles inland from the centre of
Loango Bay.
And now the long intervals between travellers' accounts wax
shorter. The well-known writer, Bowdich, before quoted,
published, in 1819, his hearsay description of the "Ingena,"
garnished with the usual native tales. I had the honour of
receiving an account of his discovery from his widow, the late
Mrs. Lee, who was held the "mother of African travellers," and
whose energy and intelligence endured to the last,--if memory
serves me, she referred to some paper upon the subject, written
by herself about 1825. Towards the end of 1846, the Rev. Mr.
Wilson, founder of the Gaboon Mission, and proto-grammarian of
its language, obtained two skulls, which were followed by
skeletons, fragmentary and perfect. He sent No. 1, measuring,
when alive, 5 ½ feet in height, and 4 feet across the shoulders,
to the "Natural History Society" of Boston. He evidently has a
right to boast that he was "the first to call the attention of
naturalists to the 'Njena.'" His colleague, Dr. Thomas Savage,
and Professor Jeffries Wyman called the new animal by the old
name of gorilla, suffixing it to the "Troglodytes" which Geoffrey
de Saint-Hilaire, reviving Linnaeus, had proposed in 1812. In
1847, Dr. Savage published in the "Journal of Natural History"
(Boston) the result of his careful inquiries about the "Engé-ena"
and the "Enche-eko." In 1852, this information was supplemented
by Dr. Ford, also of the Gaboon Mission, with a "Paper on the
Gorilla," published in the "Transactions of the Philadelphian
Academy of Sciences."
M. du Chaillu first had the honour of slaying the gorilla in its
native wilds. I saw his trophies in the United States in 1859;
and the sensation which they subsequently created in London
(1861-1862) is too recent to require notice. Unfortunately the
specimens were mutilated and imperfect. Mr. R. B. N. Walker,
agent of Messrs. Hatton and Cookson at the Gaboon River, was the
first to send home a young specimen bodily, stowed away in
spirits; two boiled skeletons of large grey animals, whose skins
I saw at the factory, and rum-preserved brains, intestines, and
other interesting parts, which had vainly been desired by
naturalists. Mr. W. Winwood Reade spent five active months in the
Gorilla country in 1862: Major Levison also visited the river,
but their hunting was as unsuccessful as mine; whilst, in 1863,
Major (now Colonel) De Ruvignes is reported to have been more
fortunate. Since that time gorillas have been killed by the
French chasseur.
The young Troglodyte has often been captured. The usual mode is
to fell the tree, and during the confusion to throw a cloth over
its head; the hands are then pinioned behind, and a forked stick
is fastened under the chin to prevent the child biting. I should
prefer, for trapping old as well as young, the way in which bears
are caught by the North American backwoodsman,--a hollowed log,
with some fruit, plantains for instance, floating in a quant.
suff. of sugar, well sugared and narcotized.
Concerning the temper of these little captives, there are heroic
differences of opinion. Mr. Ford records the "implacable
desperation" of a juvenile which was brought to the Mission. It
was taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were
used to tame it; but it was so incorrigible, that it bit me an
hour before it died." Yet, in face of this and other evidence,
Mr. W. Winwood Reade, writing to the "Athenaeum" (September 7,
1862), asserts that "the young gorilla in captivity is not
savage." "Joe Gorilla," M. du Chaillu's brat, was notoriously
fierce and unmanageable. The Rev. Mr. Walker, of Baraka, had a
specimen, which he describes as a very tractable pupil; and my
excellent friend Major Noeliy White, better known as "Governor
White," of Corisco Island, brought to Fernando Po a baby Njina,
which in its ways and manners much resembled an old woman. Mr. R.
B. N. Walker became the happy godfather of two youngsters, who
were different in disposition as Valentine and Orson. One, which
measured 18 inches high, and died in 1861, was so savage and
morose, that it was always kept chained; the other, "Seraphino,"
was of angelic nature, a general favourite at the Factory: it
survives, in a photograph taken by the French Commandant of the
Comptoir, as it sat after breakfast on godpapa's lap. At first it
was confined, but it soon became so tame and playful, that the
cage was required only at night. It never bit, unless when
teased, and its only fault was not being able to avoid the
temptation of eating what disagreed with it--in fact, it was sub-
human in some points, and very human in others. All died in
direct consequence of dysentery, which even a milk diet could not
prevent. Perhaps the best way to send home so delicate an animal
would be to keep it for a time in its native forest; to accustom
it to boiled plantains, rice, and messes of grain; and to ship it
during the fine season, having previously fitted up a cabin near
the engine-room, where the mercury should never fall below 70
°(Fahr.). In order to escape nostalgia and melancholy, which are
sure to be fatal, the emigrant should be valeted by a faithful
and attached native.
The habitat of the gorilla has been unduly limited to the left
banks of the Gaboon and Fernao Vaz rivers, and to the lands lying
between north latitude 2°, and south latitude 2°,--in fact, to
the immediate vicinity of the equator. The late Count Lavradio
informed me that he had heard of it on the banks of the lower
Congo River (south latitude 9°), and the "Soko," which Dr.
Livingstone identifies with the Gorilla, extends to the Lualaba
or Upper Congo, in the regions immediately west of the Tanganyika
Lake. His friends have suggested that the "Soko" might have been
a chimpanzee, but the old traveller was, methinks, far above
making the mistake. The Yorubans at once recognize the picture;
they call the anthropoid "Nákí;" and they declare that, when it
seizes a man, it tears the fingers asunder. So M. du Chaillu
(chapter vi.) mentions, in the Mpongwe report, that the Njina
tears off the toe-nails and the finger-nails of his human
captives. We should not believe so scandalous an assertion
without detailed proof; it is hardly fair to make the innocent
biped as needlessly cruel as man. It is well known to the natives
of the Old Calabar River by the name of "Onion." In 1860, the
brothers Jules and Ambroise Poncet travelled with Dr. Peney to Ab
Kúka, the last of their stations near the head of the Luta Nzige
(Albert Nyanza) Lake, and Dr. Peney "brought back the hand of the
first gorilla which had been heard of" ("Ocean Highways," p. 482-
-February, 1874). The German Expedition (1873) reports Chicambo
to be a gorilla country; that the anthropoid is found one day's
journey from the Coast, and that the agent of that station has
killed five with his own hand. Mr. Thompson of Sherbro ("Palm
Land," chap, xiii.) says of the chimpanzee: "Some have been seen
as tall as a man, from five to seven feet high, and very
powerful." This is evidently the Njína, the only known anthropoid
that attains tall human stature; and from the rest of the
passage,[FN#23] it is clear that he has confounded the chimpanzee
with the Nchigo-mpolo.
The strip of gorilla-country visited by me was an elevated line
of clayey and sandy soil, cut by sweet-water streams, and by
mangrove-lined swamps, backed inland by thin forest. Here the
comparative absence of matted undergrowth makes the landscape
sub-European, at least, by the side of the foul tropical jungle;
it is exceptionally rich in the wild fruits required by the huge
anthropoid. The clearings also supply bananas, pine-apple leaves,
and sugar-cane, and there is an abundance of honey, in which,
like the Nchígo, the gorilla delights. The villages and the
frequent plantations which it visits to plunder limit its
reproduction near the sea, and make it exceedingly wary and keen
of eye, if not of smell. Even when roosting by night, it is
readily frightened by a footstep; and the crash caused by the
mighty bound from branch to branch makes the traveller think that
a tree has fallen.
The gorilla breeds about December, a cool and dry month:
according to my bushmen, the period of gestation is between five
and six months. The babe begins to walk some ten days after
birth; "chops milk" for three months and, at the end of that time
may reach eighteen inches in height. M. du Chaillu makes his
child, "Joe Gorilla," 2 feet 6 inches when under the third year:
assuming the average height of the adult male at 5 feet to 5 feet
6 inches, this measurement suggests that, according to the law of
Flourens, the life would exceed thirty years. I saw two
fragmentary skins, thoroughly "pepper and salt;" and the natives
assured me that the gorilla turns silver-white with age.
It is still a disputed point whether the weight is supported by
the knuckles of the forehand, like the chimpanzee, or whether the
palm is the proper fulcrum. M. du Chaillu says ("First
Expedition," chap, xx.), "the fingers are only lightly marked on
the ground;" yet a few pages afterwards we are told, "The most
usual mode of progression of the animal is on all-fours and
resting on the knuckles." In the "Second Expedition" (chap, ii.)
we read, "The tracks of the feet never showed the marks of toes,
only the heels, and the track of the hands showed simply the
impressions of the knuckles."
The attack of the gorilla is that of the apes and the monkeys
generally. The big-bellied satyr advances to the assault as it
travels, shuffling on all-fours; "rocking" not traversing;
bristling the crest, chattering, mowing and displaying the
fearful teeth and tusks. Like all the Simiads, this Troglodyte
sways the body to and fro, and springs from side to side for the
purpose of avoiding the weapon. At times Quasimodo raises himself
slightly upon the dwarfed "asthenogenic," and almost deformed
hind limbs, which look those of a child terminating the body of a
Dan Lambert: the same action may be seen in its congeners great
and small. The wild huntsmen almost cried with laughter when they
saw the sketches in the "Gorilla Book,"[FN#24] the mighty
pugilist standing stiff and upright as the late Mr. Benjamin
Caunt, "beating the breast with huge fists till it sounded like
an immense bass drum;" and preparing to deal a buffet worthy of
Friar Tuck. They asked me if I thought mortal man would ever
attempt to face such a thing as that? With respect to drumming
with both forehands upon the chest, some asserted that such is
the brute's practice when calling Mrs. Gorilla, or during the
excitement of a scuffle; but the accounts of the bushmen differ
greatly on this point. In a hand-to-hand struggle it puts forth
one of the giant feet, sometimes the hinder, as "Joe Gorilla" was
wont to do; and, having once got a hold with its prehensile toes,
it bites and worries like any other ape, baboon, or monkey. From
this grapple doubtless arose the old native legend about the
gorilla drawing travellers up trees and "quietly choking them."
It can have little vitality, as it is easily killed with a bit of
stone propelled out of a trade musket by the vilest gunpowder,
and the timid bushmen, when failing to shoot it unawares, do not
fear to attack it openly. As a rule, the larger the Simiad, the
less sprightly it becomes; and those most approaching man are
usually the tamest and the most melancholy--perhaps, their
spirits are permanently affected by their narrow escape. The
elderly male (for anthropoids, like anthropoi, wax fierce and
surly with increasing years) will fight, but only from fear, when
suddenly startled, or with rage when slightly wounded. Moreover,
there must be rogue-gorillas, like rogue-elephants, lions,
hippopotami, rhinoceros, and even stags, vieux grognards, who,
expelled house and home, and debarred by the promising young
scions from the softening influence of feminine society, become,
in their enforced widowerhood, the crustiest of old bachelors. At
certain seasons they may charge in defence of the wife and
family, but the practice is exceptional. Mr. Wilson saw a man who
had lost the calf of his leg in an encounter, and one Etia, a
huntsman whose left hand had been severely crippled, informed Mr.
W. Winwood Reade, that "the gorilla seized his wrist with his
hind foot, and dragged his hand into his mouth, as he would have
done a bunch of plantains." No one, however, could give me an
authentic instance of manslaughter by our big brother.
The modifications with which we must read the picturesque pages
of the "Gorilla Book" are chiefly the following. The Gorilla is a
poor devil ape, not a "hellish dream-creature, half man, half
beast." He is not king of the African forest; he fears the Njego
or leopard and, as lions will not live in these wet, wooded, and
gameless lands, he can hardly have expelled King Leo. He does not
choose the "darkest, gloomiest forests," but prefers the thin
woods, where he finds wild fruits for himself and family. His
tremendous roar does not shake the jungle: it is a hollow apish
cry, a loudish huhh! huhh! huhh! explosive like the puff of a
steam-engine, which, in rage becomes a sharp and snappish bark --
any hunter can imitate it. Doubtless, in some exceptional cases,
when an aged mixture of Lablache and Dan Lambert delivers his
voce di petto, the voice may be heard for some distance in the
still African shades, but it will hardly compare with the howling
monkeys of the Brazil, which make the forest hideous. The eye is
not a "light grey" but the brown common to all the tribe. The
Gorilla cannot stand straight upon his rear quarter when
attacking or otherwise engaged without holding on to a trunk: he
does not "run on his hind legs;" he is essentially a tree ape, as
every stuffed specimen will prove. He never gives a tremendous
blow with his immense open paw; doubtless, a native legend found
in Battel and Bowdich; nor does he attack with the arms. However
old and male he may be, he runs away with peculiar alacrity:
though powerfully weaponed with tigerish teeth, with "bunches of
muscular fibre," and with the limbs of Goliah, the gorilla, on
the seaboard at least, is essentially a coward; nor can we be
surprised at his want of pluck, considering the troubles and
circumstances under which he spends his harassed days. Finally,
whilst a hen will defend her chicks, Mrs. Gorilla will fly,
leaving son or daughter in the hunter's hands.