JACK WILL HAVE HIS OWN WAY.--HE SEIZES MY LEG.--HE TEARS MY
PANTALOONS.--HE GROWLS AT ME.--HE REFUSES COOKED FOOD.--JACK
MAKES HIS BED.--JACK SLEEPS WITH ONE EYE OPEN.--JACK IS
INTRACTABLE.
Now let us follow that young gorilla, whom I called Jack.
Jack, to begin with, was the most untractable little beast one possibly
could get hold of. Jack was a little villain, a little rogue, very
treacherous, and quite untamable. The kinder I was, the worse he seemed
to be. We took him with us in the forest till we returned to our
village, and then many of the women disappeared.
Jack was smart in his wickedness, and was quite as treacherous as any of
the gorillas I had met before. He would not eat any cooked food, and
every day I had to send into the forest for berries and nuts. I wish you
could have seen his eyes glisten, you would have noticed how treacherous
and gloomy they were. Jack was cunning; he would look at me right
straight in the face, and when he did that I learned that he meant
mischief, and, if close at hand, meant an attack upon me.
Of course, once in the camp, the forked stick had been taken away, and a
little chain tied round the neck of Jack; the chain was about six feet
long. Then I had a long pole fastened in the ground, and the chain was
tied to an iron ring which had been used as a bracelet on the upper arm
of a native, by which means he could turn all round without entangling
the chain.
[Illustration: CAUGHT BY JACK.]
One day I had come to offer Jack some tondo (berries) which friend
Malaouen had just collected for him (I wanted always to feed Jack
myself, to see if I could tame him), and I approached the little fellow
to within the distance which I thought the utmost length of his chain
would allow him to go. He looked at me straight in the face, and I
waited for him to extend his arm to get the nice tondo I was offering
him, when, quick as lightning, he threw his body on the ground on one
arm and one leg, the chain drawn to its full length, and then, before I
knew it, he seized my leg, and with his big toe got hold and fast of my
_inexpressibles_, which were rather old, and a portion of them was soon
in his possession. I thought in my fright that a piece of my leg had
also been taken away, which I am glad to say was not the case. Still
holding the piece of my pantaloons, he retreated to his pole, then gave
a howl and started at me again. This time I knew better--I was off. He
held the piece of my pantaloons for a long time, it having passed from
his big toe into his hand.
Jack looked at times almost cross-eyed, and was as ugly a fellow as any
one could wish to see. He was not so strong as friend Joe, the account
of which you have read in "Stories of the Gorilla Country," but he was a
pretty strong chap, and I should not have liked to be shut up in a room
alone with him. Several times I had narrow escapes of a grip from his
strong big toe.
When evening came, Jack would collect the dry leaves I had given him,
and would go to sleep upon them, and sometimes he did look almost like a
child.
How strange that I never saw twin gorillas! The mother gorilla has only
one baby gorilla at a time. My men and I have captured a good many of
their young ones during the time I lived in the great forest of
Equatorial Africa, but I never succeeded in taming one. Some were more
fierce or stubborn than others, but all refused food that was cooked;
the berries, nuts, and fruits must come from the forest. Though these
little brutes were diminutive, and the merest babies in age, they were
astonishingly strong, and, as you have yourselves seen in the different
accounts I have given you, by no means good tempered. When any thing
displeased them they would roar, and bellow, and look wickedly from out
their cunning little eyes, and strike the ground with their feet.
Jack was not so ugly-looking a fellow as friend Joe, neither was he as
strong. Like all the gorillas, his face and his skin were entirely
black. His little eyes, deep and sunken, seemed to be gray; his nose was
more prominent than in the chimpanzee, for gorillas have noses, and
consequently he comes nearer in appearance than the chimpanzee to the
African negro. He had, as we have, eyelashes, and the upper ones were
the longest. His mouth was large, and the lips sharply cut. The gorilla
has no lips like we have; the dark pigment covers them, and when his
mouth is shut no red is seen outside. The ears are small in comparison
with the face, and they are smaller than the ears of man. Their ears are
much smaller than those of the chimpanzee, and look very much like the
ears of man; the chin is short and receding.
The face is very wrinkled; the head is covered with hair much shorter
than that on the body, and in the male gorilla the top of the head has a
reddish crown of hair.
You see how much the arm of the gorilla is like the arm of man--how
short his legs are. The leg is about the same size from the knee to the
ankle, the short thigh decreasing slightly. The leg of the gorilla has
not the graceful curve found in man, it having no calf.
I want you to examine the hands and feet of a young gorilla. You will be
struck at once how short the hand is, and how much it looks like that of
a man. The fingers are short, but how thick they are! the nails are very
much like ours, and project slightly over the tips of the fingers. See
how short the thumb is--how much shorter than the thumb of man; it is
hardly half as thick as the forefinger. The thumb is of very little use
to a gorilla. The palm of the hand is hard, naked, and callous; the back
is hairy to the knuckles, and the short hair grows on the fingers, as in
man.
[Illustration: GORILLA SLEEPING.]
The leg of the gorilla is very short. Look at his foot. Instead of a big
toe he has a thumb, and you see, by the wrinkles and transverse indents,
that the foot is used as a hand. The third toe is a little longer than
the second, and the others follow in the same proportion; and, if you
look at your own feet, you will see that the toes of the gorilla and
those of man keep the same gradation of length, the middle one being the
longest.
Look at the representation of a young gorilla as he sleeps. He certainly
looks almost like a baby; but do not believe that he is so fast asleep
that you need make a great deal of noise to awake him. No; these little
fellows seem to go "to bed" with one eye open, and at the least noise
you see their gray eye twinkle, and immediately they sit up, and look
round to discover what is the matter, and at once are ready for a fight.
As they awake they generally give a howl of defiance.