MAN-EATING ANIMALS—THE TIGER’S SLAVE—A SAVAGE
LION-HUNT—WOLF-REARED CHILDREN—MEN AND APES—A SHAM
GORILLA—UNPROHIBITED MURDER—A MONKEY’S MALISON.
We have seen how some animals are, by their cunning and sagacity, able to
compete even with man himself. At an earlier period, when wild animals
were more numerous than they are now and when man had nowhere risen above
the savage state, this must have been still more the case, and, even now,
there are parts of the world where the struggle between man and beast
can hardly be said to have been decided in favour of the former. Thus
in India, in spite of its old and, in many respects, high civilisation,
tigers have held their own from time immemorial, and every year numbers
of the natives are killed by certain individuals amongst them, that have
acquired a taste for human flesh in preference to any other.
These man-eaters, as they are called, become wonderfully cunning, and
never attack either a European or a _shikaree_, or native hunter, who
is always armed with his matchlock. The poor labourers or cattle-herds,
on the other hand, who carry nothing, except perhaps a stick, which,
of course, is of no use, are totally defenceless against these lurking
fiends, which hang about the villages, and sometimes quite depopulate
them. A fearful thing it must be, not to be able to stir beyond the
little collection of mud and straw-thatched huts which make an Indian
village without being liable to a sudden and horrible death. Sometimes,
indeed, the tiger will come into the very village street and carry off a
man or a woman almost from the door of their hut. Or it will lurk near
the well or tank from which the water is drawn, so that to procure the
precious fluid, without which the lives of the community could not be
supported, individual lives must constantly be risked. The only remedy
for a state of things like this is the arrival of a British officer or,
at least, of a native shikaree upon the scene, and this in a country so
large and densely populated as India, and with such a small scattering
of Europeans in it, is not an everyday occurrence. Often, therefore, the
people get tired of waiting, and after losing a certain proportion of
their number, the remainder abandon the village and migrate to another
part of the country altogether.
No wonder all sorts of superstitions have sprung up in the native mind
concerning an animal so fierce and terrible, against which men—at least
poor men—are so defenceless. One of these superstitions is that the tiger
has power over the body of the man slain by him, for as long as he may
care to come to it—that the man, under these circumstances, becomes, as
it were, the slave of the tiger, and is bound to help his master and
give him warning of danger should he see it approaching. Thus a story
is told of a shikaree who went to watch by the remains of a man that
a tiger had killed, hoping to shoot the murderer when it returned at
sundown to complete its repast on the body, as is the animal’s habit.
In the still of the afternoon, when the sun was low, the shikaree saw
the tiger approaching over the level ground, but while it was still at a
safe distance, the corpse, all mangled and gory as it was, raised itself
a little and held up a hand in warning, on which the tiger slunk away.
Twice it came back, but each time it was warned in the same way by the
man that was now its slave, so the shikaree had to give it up, and go
without getting a shot. If the corpse had been left there, then, even
after it had become a skeleton, it would have been obliged to help the
tiger, had the latter required its assistance; but no doubt it was taken
away and properly buried.
[Illustration: A KAFFIR LION HUNT.
The hunters surrounded the lion shouting and singing, and the lion,
confused by the noise and numbers, crouched and growled. The circle grew
smaller and smaller until a single warrior rushed forward, the lion
sprang upon him to be received on the point of his assegai, and was soon
dispatched by the brave hunter and his comrades.]
The Hindoos would not suffer so much from tigers if they were a more
warlike race, for, although they have no firearms, they might easily
make spears, and a party of men with spears can kill the fiercest beast
of prey. Thus the Kaffirs of South Africa if a lion should kill even an
ox belonging to them, much more one of themselves, never rest until they
have taken its life in return. The whole village arm themselves with
their spears—or assegais,[18] as we call them—and follow up the track of
the marauder till they have at last found him, however far he may have
gone. They then form a circle round the lion, and holding one assegai
in the right hand, and some spare ones, together with a shield large
enough to cover the whole body, in the left, they begin to close in upon
him, singing and shouting. The lion, when he sees so many men advancing
against him, crouches down and, growling fiercely, makes ready to spring
upon one of them, as soon as he comes within a certain distance. He has
not long to wait. The men, continuing to advance, make the circle ever
smaller, and as he turns from side to side, doubtful on which point in
it first to charge, a single warrior—as arranged probably by previous
agreement—rushes forward to the combat. Instantly, the lion’s attention,
which has been distracted amidst the numbers of his enemies, is fixed
upon this one, and, with concentrated fury, he comes leaping towards
him. Did the man stand to receive the charge, he would be dashed to the
ground by the mere weight of the lion’s body; but, skilful as brave, he
sinks gracefully down, with his shield held over him, and stabs up with
his assegai from underneath it. For one blow—which may or may not be
fatal—the lion has time, but, almost as he makes it, twenty or thirty
assegais meet in his body, as, with a tremendous yell, the rest rush down
upon him, each striving to be first to shield the comrade, who has thus
so splendidly performed his part. In the mêlée which ensues many of the
men may be more or less badly mauled, whilst some may lose their lives,
but when it is all over—and it does not last many minutes—the lion lies
stretched on the ground, with hardly an inch of skin, in his whole body,
not cut by the blade of an assegai. Thus, amongst the more warlike tribes
of Africa, lions have no chance of becoming habitual man-eaters, as do
so many tigers in India, but in those parts of the country where the
natives are timid, just the same thing happens, though, even there, there
is not often so long a lease of life for the offending animal.
Most of the larger feline animals take, occasionally, to man-eating, as
leopards in Asia or Africa, and jaguars in America. The puma, however, as
we have seen before, is the friend of man, and never behaves in this way.
Wolves, when they go in packs, are very dangerous to man, but I have not
heard of their showing a special predilection for his flesh except in the
province of Oude, in India, and here, since they hunt separately, for the
most part, and a grown person—at least a man—would be often too strong
for them, it is children that they mostly attack. “Night comes on,” says
someone who has lived there, “the wolf slinks about the village site,
marking the unguarded hut. It comes to one protected by a low wall, or
closed by an ill-fitting _tattie_ (mat). Inside, the mother, wearied by
the long day’s work, is asleep with her child in her arms, unconscious of
the danger at hand. The wolf makes its spring, fastens his teeth in the
baby’s throat, slings the little body across its back, and is off before
the mother is fully aware of her loss. Pursuit is generally useless. If
forced to drop its burden, the cruel creature tears it beyond power of
healing, while should it elude pursuit, the morning’s search results in
the discovery of a few bones, the remnants of the dreadful meal.”
It would seem—that is to say, there is evidence which makes it difficult
not to believe so, so for my part, I do believe it—that, every now and
then, a child that has been carried off in this way by a wolf, is not
eaten, but grows up with the young wolves, in the den to which it has
been brought, being suckled like them by the dam. The evidence of which I
speak comes from various witnesses, both native and European, and whilst
the different stories told confirm one another, several “wolf-boys,” as
they are called, have been actually brought up in orphanages or other
charitable institutions in Oude, into which they have been received,
after having, according to the account of those who brought them there,
been actually captured whilst in the company of wolves, and going on all
fours, like them. These boys, when first caught, were just like animals
in all their ways and habits, ate only raw meat, and though they got a
little less wolf-like by degrees, can hardly be said to have ever become
human beings, and never learnt to speak.
Here is an account of the capture of one of these poor wolf-boys. It
appeared in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_ more than fifty
years ago, and is quoted by Professor Ball in his _Jungle Life in India_,
where a résumé of the evidence on this subject may be found. It evidently
seems as strong to him as it does to me, but I was wrong to say that it
was difficult not to believe in the thing after reading the evidence for
it, for the fact is that evidence has not so much effect on people as
it ought to have. We believe a thing—or are inclined to believe it—or
not, according to the general inclination of our mind, and then test the
evidence by our belief, instead of our belief by the evidence. However,
here is the account, and it is only one of several others: “Some time
ago two of the King of Oude’s _sawars_, riding along the banks of the
Gúmptji, saw three animals come down to drink. Two were evidently young
wolves, but the third was as evidently some other animal. The sawars
rushed in upon them and captured all three, and to their great surprise,
found that one was a small, naked boy. He was on all fours, like his
companions, had callosities on his knees and elbows, evidently caused
by the attitude used in moving about, and bit and scratched violently
in resisting the capture. The boy was brought up in Lucknow, where he
lived some time, and may, for aught I know, be living still. He was
quite unable to articulate words, but had a dog-like intellect, quick
at understanding signs and so on.” Again, quoting from the same paper:
“There was another more wonderful, but hardly so well authenticated,
story of a boy who never could get rid of a strong wolfish smell, and
who was seen, not long after his capture, to be visited by three wolves,
which came evidently with hostile intentions, but which, after closely
examining him, he seeming not the least alarmed, played with him, and,
some nights afterwards, brought their relations, making the number of
visitors amount to five, the number of cubs the litter he had been taken
from was composed of.”
I quote these accounts as the two most interesting, and, for their
evidential value, refer again to the work I have just mentioned. Then
was the famous story of Romulus and Remus true after all? Supposing
the brothers had been found and rescued by peasants, before they had
been long with the wolf, this does not seem to me impossible, for then
there would not have been time for those dreadful dehumanising effects,
recorded in these Indian cases. But whether true or not, I have no doubt
that the legend—and it is only one of many such—grew out of observed
facts, and such facts were, no doubt, commoner in early times than they
are now. As a reason for the child being sometimes suckled, after having
been brought by one of a pair of wolves to the common den, Professor
Ball suggests that if the other of them had, in the meantime, brought
home something else—as, say, a kid or goat—and if this had been eaten
first, the child, lying amongst the cubs, might have been received as one
of them, before a fresh meal was required, in which case it would not
afterwards have been hurt. He thinks it more likely, however, that the
child should have been stolen by a she-wolf, to replace the loss of one
or other of her cubs. I do not, myself, however, think this nearly so
likely. Why should it occur to a wolf, or any animal, to replace its own
young by a human child? If it wished to adopt, it would surely adopt a
wolf-cub. The first of these explanations, therefore, is the one that I
accept, and it seems to me a probable enough one.
Children in Oude used to be so frequently carried off, that there were
people who made a livelihood by searching the wolf-dens, on the chance
of finding gold ornaments there, for in India it is customary to deck
children out in jewellery, of which even the poorest people seem to
have a family stock. No wonder, therefore, if sometimes one should have
escaped being devoured in the way above indicated; but whether the same
state of things prevails at the present time I do not know. Perhaps it
does, for the people who went about looking for the jewels, did not want
the wolves to be exterminated, for fear they should not be able to make
an honest living, just as our own wreckers were very much opposed to the
building of lighthouses, or as some shipowners think it a wicked thing
that they should not be able to insure their vessels for four or five
times their value. Whether they still can do this, or whether there are
still professional wolf-den searchers in India, I don’t quite know.
It seems possible, then, that man may sometimes live with animals, and
lead the life that they do—in fact, become an animal to all intents and
purposes. On the other hand, there are animals that do not fall so very
far behind man, in his lowest and most savage state. I am thinking, of
course, of the great man-like or anthropoid apes, in whose uncouth,
satyr-like forms, and grotesque physiognomies, we no doubt see, if not
actual copies of what our remote ancestors were, yet something very
similar to what they must have been. This was Darwin’s opinion, though
from the stress that is always being laid upon his not having thought
the existing apes our ancestors—as some still think he did—but only our
co-descendants from a common progenitor, there is a danger of forgetting
that it was. Man, according to Darwin’s view, has very much diverged from
this common ape ancestor, whilst the existing apes have not; but he has
only so diverged through a number of steps or stages, and could we trace
these back, we should soon reach beings—our real forefathers—differing
but little from the apes of the present day. This is really not so very
different from having descended from those actual apes; but many people
seem to find great comfort in thinking they have not done that. It is
only tweedledum as against tweedledee, but they make the most of it.
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT ASSASSINS.
From the picture by Briton Riviere, R.A.]
Chief amongst these interesting beings, whose general appearance,
in spite of their hairiness, their semi-quadrupedal gait and their
arboreal habits, distinguishes them amongst all other animals, as being
next-of-kin to man, stands the great gorilla, who lives its life in the
half-twilight gloom of the forests of equatorial Africa. What is this
life? Unfortunately, the little we know of it is all in connection with
the persecution which these creatures, like their relatives the orangs
and chimpanzees, are always liable to, and too frequently endure, at
the hands of man; so that very little concerning them, beyond how they
behave when shot, has as yet been made known to us. The female gorilla,
it would seem, makes a shelter of woven branches amongst the trees (as
do both the species above mentioned) for herself and her young one; but
whether the male, who is less arboreal, does this too, I am not so sure,
and indeed Du Chaillu—who, though hardly ever mentioned by writers on
natural history who yet follow him, knew more than anyone else about
gorillas—does not, as far as I remember, give this as one of their
habits. Be this as it may, the gorilla is the least arboreal of all the
anthropoid apes, not climbing nearly so well or so frequently, even
as the chimpanzee—its companion in the African forests—much less the
orang-utan of Borneo and Sumatra, or the gibbon, another Asiatic species,
which is the most active of all. Its great bulk would, no doubt, be
against this, but as the size of any animal must stand in some sort of
relation to its habits of life, it seems curious that a creature living
in dense forests, and belonging to a climbing family, should have become
so large as to impede its powers in this respect.
Now the male gorilla, standing, sometimes, six feet high, and being
much huger and bulkier than the largest man of that height, is greatly
superior in size to the female, whose stature does not often exceed four
and a half feet; for which reason she appears to be, and probably is,
more fitted for nimbleness and activity, amongst the branches of trees,
than her huge and heavy-bodied mate. But what has led to this great
disparity of size between the male and female gorilla—a disparity which
does not exist to anything like the same extent in the other man-like
apes? Both are nourished by the same food; both must lead—or, if they do
not now, must at any rate once have led—the very same life; therefore,
as it would seem, there must be some special reason for their size and
strength differing so greatly. It does not seem to be quite certain
whether polygamy is, or is not, the custom amongst gorillas, but there
can be little doubt that the rival males often fight together, for the
possession of the females. The natives showed Du Chaillu some skulls of
these great apes, that had the canine teeth of the upper jaw—which in
the male gorilla are almost as large as a lion’s—broken off, and this,
they said, had been done in some tremendous conflict of this sort, in
which their owners had been engaged. Now if the male gorillas, besides
being accustomed to fight for the females, are also polygamous, this may
be a reason why they have become so much larger than the latter, for
the largest and strongest amongst them would always have won, and so,
by collecting together a more numerous harem, would have left a greater
number of offspring to inherit their size and ferocity. The females,
however, not fighting, would not have grown larger in the same way, for
though, in nature, the qualities of one sex are often transmitted to the
other, this is by no means always the case. Generally, indeed, if not
always, where there is polygamy, the sexes differ much both in size and
appearance.
What a sight amidst these gloomy forests must be the contention in fierce
rivalry of two full-grown male gorillas! We may imagine one—the more
favoured suitor—sitting on the ground, his back, as is usual, against
the trunk of a tree, and his arm flung carelessly about the object of
his regard; the great fingers of the wonderfully human hand burying
themselves in her fur. All at once the peaceful nature of the scene is
rudely disturbed by the frowning presence of another male, whilst the
silence is as suddenly broken by a terrific barking cry, passing into a
long, loud, sullen, reverberating roar. The unwelcome comer has been, at
first, upon all fours, but now he rears himself upon his short hind legs,
and leaving the screen of heavy frondage that has hitherto partially
concealed him, advances into the open space beneath this tropical
trysting-tree. As he does so, the female discreetly retires, whilst her
spouse, or lover, assuming also the erect posture, comes forward to meet
his rival. The two advance upon each other with ferocious mien, they roar
alternately, or in unison, and beat, at intervals, with their doubled
fists upon the vast convexity of their chests, producing in this way a
deep, continuous, hollow sound, like the rolling of a muffled drum. As
the distance between them decreases, the eyes of each seem to flash more
fiercely, whilst the crest of hair upon the forehead is drawn rapidly up
and down, with a twitching motion, by the angry contraction of the facial
muscles. At length, and with a final roar, when separated by but a few
paces, each drops upon its knuckles,[19] and springs, almost at the same
time, upon the other. Were it a man that either encountered, he would
instantly be stretched dead or dying upon the ground, but here terrific
strength upon the one side is met by force as great upon the other, and
the combat is as long and as dubious as it is furious and violent.
After a heavy blow or two dealt with the open palm, the aim of either
champion would, probably, be to pull the other towards him, so as to
inflict a wound with the powerful canine teeth. As a result there would
soon be a deadlock, in which the two great creatures, pressed together
and grappling in a close embrace, would gnash and tear furiously at
one another. As long as the limbs were not free, the fighting would be
entirely with the teeth, and as these would probably be used to parry
as well as to inflict wounds, they would constantly clash together,
and might thus sometimes be broken off. How, or for how long, such a
combat would be likely to proceed, what might be its result, whether
the provoker of it—the bashful young gorillaress—would be unconcerned
during its continuance or stand regarding it with an anxious eye from
her retreat amidst the undergrowth of the forest, whether, too, by
manifesting a choice she would become an active agent in the life’s
happiness, or otherwise, of the two grim pretendants to her favours, or
go off passively with either one or the other, as mere spoils of the
victor, it is not in our power to say, nor will we here further consider.
Had there been as much desire to see and study the habits of the great
man-ape, as there has been to procure specimens of him, which add but
little to our knowledge, and that in the least interesting way, we might
be well informed on all these points and many others, but, as it is,
we must wait till real naturalists—people, that is to say, who love
watching animals and hate killing them—go out to these regions—they are
wanted everywhere. Doubtless, bad wounds are sometimes inflicted by male
gorillas upon one another, in these tremendous encounters, but probably
they are never fatal, since the huge framework would be as potent to
resist injury as the giant strength would be to inflict it, and a
gorilla that had not yet arrived at maturity would never think of trying
conclusions with a full-grown one.
Though the above picture is merely imaginary, yet it is not, perhaps,
altogether void of foundation. It is natural to suppose that in attacking
one of his own species, the gorilla would employ the same methods of
warfare as he does against his only extraneous enemy—man; and that these
are such as I have described them, the following account will show. “We
walked,” says Du Chaillu, “with the greatest care, making no noise at
all. The countenances of the men showed that they thought themselves
engaged in a very serious undertaking; but we pushed on till finally
we thought we saw through the thick woods the moving of the branches
and small trees, which the great beast was tearing down, probably to
get from them the berries and fruits he lives on. Suddenly, as we were
yet creeping along in a silence which made a heavy breath seem loud and
distinct, the woods were at once filled with the tremendous barking
roar of the gorilla. Then the underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and
presently before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through
the jungle on all fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and
looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and
was a sight I think I shall never forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved
four inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great, muscular
arms, with fiercely glaring, large, deep grey eyes, and a hellish
expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision: thus
stood before us this king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us.
He stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists, till it resounded
like an immense bass-drum, which is their mode of offering defiance;
meantime giving vent to roar after roar. His eyes began to flash fiercer
fire as we stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of short
hair, which stands on his forehead, began to twitch rapidly up and down,
while his powerful fangs were shown, as he again sent forth a thunderous
roar. And now truly,” exclaims Du Chaillu—upon whom, evidently, no
striking sight or impressive experience was thrown away—“he reminded
me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature—a being of that hideous
order, half man, half beast, which we find pictured by old artists in
some representations of the infernal regions. He advanced a few steps,
then stopped to utter that hideous roar again—advanced again, and finally
stopped, when at a distance of about six yards from us.” At this point
the poor gorilla, who, whatever his appearance may have been, could
not, certainly, in the malignity of his intentions have surpassed Du
Chaillu himself, was shot. In another moment he would, no doubt, have
launched himself upon his assailants—for such the party really were—and
the picture would have been reversed, except that the “half man” would
have been guiltless of any premeditated design against the life of an
unoffending fellow-creature.
In another encounter we find the same distribution of blame as between
the whole man and the half one, but luck here is on the side of the
latter. “Our little party separated, as is the custom, to stalk the wood
in various directions. Gambo and I kept together. One brave fellow went
off alone in a direction where he thought he could find a gorilla. The
other three took another course. We had been about an hour separated
when Gambo and I heard a gun fired but a little way from us, and
presently another. We were already on our way to the spot, where we hoped
to see a gorilla slain, when the forest began to resound with the most
terrific roars. Gambo seized my arms in great agitation, and we hurried
on, both filled with a dreadful and sickening alarm. We had not gone
far when our worst fears were realised. The poor, brave fellow who had
gone off alone was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, and
I thought at first quite dead. His bowels were protruding through the
lacerated abdomen. Beside him lay his gun. The stock was broken, and the
barrel was bent and flattened. It bore plainly the marks of the gorilla’s
teeth. When the unlucky hunter revived a little, he told the following
story. He said that he had met the gorilla suddenly and face to face, and
that it had not attempted to escape. It was, he said, a huge male, and
seemed very savage. It was in a very gloomy part of the wood, and the
darkness, I suppose, made him miss. He said he took good aim, and fired
when the beast was only about eight yards off. The ball merely wounded it
in the side. It at once began beating its chest, and with the greatest
rage advanced upon him. To run away was impossible. He would have been
caught in the jungle before he had gone a dozen steps. He stood his
ground, and as quickly as he could reloaded his gun. Just as he raised it
to fire, the gorilla dashed it out of his hands, the gun going off in the
fall; then in an instant, and with a terrible roar, the animal gave him
a tremendous blow with its immense open paw, frightfully lacerating the
abdomen, and with this single blow laying bare part of the intestines.
As he sank bleeding to the ground the monster seized the gun, and the
poor hunter thought he would have his brains dashed out with it. But the
gorilla seems to have looked upon this also as an enemy, and in his rage
almost flattened the barrel between his strong jaws.”
It is not quite certain from either of these accounts whether the gorilla
made his final onslaught in the upright or the quadrupedal attitude. It
seems more likely that the former is intended, but I cannot help thinking
myself that in the quick rush at the end of the leisurely advance the
creature would adopt his usual mode of progression, which is a sort of
shambling amble on all fours, but with the fore part of the body so
raised above the ground, on account of the great length of the fore arms,
as to make it of a transitional character. If, for instance, a man’s
arms were so long that he could lean on them when running, and merely
stooped a little in order to do so, we should hardly say that his gait
was quadrupedal—and this is how the gorilla walks or runs under ordinary
circumstances.
Du Chaillu tells us that the male gorilla is unmolested except by man,
and also that he has never known a full-grown male to retreat upon
his approach, or to act otherwise than as recorded in the foregoing
narratives. Now gorillas live “in the loneliest and darkest portions
of the dense African jungle,” and to many of them man must be unknown
till he seeks them out for their destruction. As a rule, when a male is
discovered it is sitting with its back against a tree—in the way I have
pictured it in my imagined scene of rivalry—whilst at least one female
feeds about, in its near neighbourhood. Perhaps there will be a young one
sitting on the ground, or clinging to its mother’s breast. Now when, for
the first time in its experience, a man intrudes thus upon a gorilla’s
domestic privacy, and it rises and advances upon him, for what does it
take him? Most probably, as it appears to me, for another and a rival
gorilla—thus more than returning the “half-man” compliment paid it by Du
Chaillu.
There is good evidence that monkeys of all sorts see, in ourselves, but a
larger species of monkey, and even the various expressions of the human
countenance seem, in some degree, intelligible to them. The gorilla sees
suddenly before him, in the gloom of the forest, a creature of the same
general shape as himself—of his own colour, too, for his skin is black,
and so is that of a negro—whilst in size it, at least, approaches him.
Minor differences, such as an unaccustomed slenderness of build, and an
inferior development of jaws and teeth, are, probably, but imperfectly
grasped. A peculiarly weak and weedy-looking gorilla, that, no doubt,
is the general effect produced; but the masculine character is stamped
upon the figure, and its approach suggests rivalry. All the details of
the male gorilla’s behaviour, on the occasion of these rencontres—as
narrated by Du Chaillu—are explained on the above supposition. We can see
now, at once, why he does not seek safety in flight, for such a retreat
would both derogate from his honour, nor does it seem to be necessary.
If, indeed, he saw and smelt man, as any four-footed creature sees and
smells him—but instead of that it is only another gorilla that he has
to do with—an inferior and less agreeably smelling one, no doubt—a
degenerate—but still presuming to rival him in the affections of his
spouse. Upon this hint he acts, and is, in consequence, shot by the being
that he takes for a very sorry specimen of his own species.
[Illustration: A GORILLA FIGHT IN THE FOREST.]
Space will not allow me to supplement this slight account of the gorilla
with a few remarks about those two other large apes—the orang-utan and
chimpanzee—which, with himself, make the three nearest approaches to the
human species. Indeed, there are not very many remarks to be made, for
our knowledge of these most interesting creatures is contained, for the
most part, in certain horrid descriptions of the way in which they act
when shot; complacent accounts—innocently worded, cheerfully told—of
what are really little better than so many cold-blooded, hard-hearted
murders. Everything, almost, that we have heard at first hand, has been
in connection with these barbarous proceedings—how mothers, for instance,
behave when shot with their infants clinging to them, or how the infants
act when they find their mothers are dead: how one _mias_ or _pappan_
will weave branches together, to sit upon, whilst it is shot at, and
another make a shift to continue alive with legs and arms broken, the
spine shattered, and all sorts of other more or less important parts
injured in varying degrees: bullets flattened, here and there, too—in
the neck or jaws—as lesser, though still piquant additions—enjoyable
side-dishes—to the main feast of maimings and manglings.
“Tenacity of life”—“_Extraordinary_ tenacity of life”—is the scientific
heading under which cases of the last kind fall, and everyone must have
noticed the strange and horrid sort of pleasure with which they are
always recorded by those responsible for them—how their spirits seem
to rise as the list of injuries grows longer—“the more the merrier,”
in fact, and the more harrowing the more welcome. This is what anyone
interested in the ways of wild animals has to go through when he seeks
for knowledge concerning them—life written very small indeed, and death,
with contortions, in great flaring capital letters. Seldom, indeed, do
we get the light and joy of the one unclouded by the gloom of the other.
As Lady Macbeth says, “Here’s the smell of the blood still.” It is, I
own, a mystery to me how a civilised man can deliberately kill a monkey
even—much less one of the higher apes. There are many, indeed, who having
shot a monkey once, have been so thoroughly upset by its reproachful and
very human-like actions that they have resolved never to do so again; but
as it is better to be warned through others than by one’s own experience,
I will conclude this small work by giving two striking cases of this
kind, both of which are quoted by Professor Romanes in his interesting
_Animal Intelligence_.
“I was once,” says Captain Johnson—to take the first of these—“one of
a party of Jeekary, in the Babor district; our tents were pitched in a
large mango garden, and our horses were piquetted in the same garden,
a little distance off. When we were at dinner a Syer came to us,
complaining that some of the horses had broken loose, in consequence of
being frightened by monkeys (_i.e._ _Macacus rhesus_) on the trees. As
soon as dinner was over I went out with my gun, to drive them off, and
I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down to the
lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped
suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood,
and held it out for me to see. I was so much hurt at the time that it has
left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since fired a
gun at any of the tribe.”
The second case is to be found recorded by Sir W. Hoste in his _Memoirs_,
and is thus alluded to by Jesse in _Gleanings from Natural History_:
“One of his officers, coming home after a long day’s shooting, saw a
female monkey running along the rocks, with her young one in her arms. He
immediately fired, and the animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her
little one close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the
wound which the ball had made, and which had entered above her breast.
Dipping her finger in the blood, and then holding it up, she seemed to
reproach him with being the cause of her death, and consequently that
of the young one, to which she frequently pointed. ‘I never,’ says Sir
William, ‘felt so much as when I heard the story, and I determined never
to shoot one of these animals as long as I lived.’”
Monkeys are supposed to be less intelligent than men; and yet I never
heard of a soldier, shot down in battle, reproaching in this dumb but
dreadful way the king or cabinet ministers who had sent him out to be
killed. But then, when one comes to think of it, it is not quite such an
easy thing for soldiers to do as it is for monkeys. Many a poor fellow,
perhaps, may have had it in his mind, and even got his finger ready; but
when he looked round, just before dying, for his king or his emperor or
the cabinet ministers—why, they were not there, so what would have been
the use of holding it up?
FOOTNOTES
[1] Many birds are accustomed to eject the indigestible portions of their
food—bones, fur, feathers, etc., or the shells and shards of crustaceans
and insects—in the form of balls or pellets, which are, indeed, very
interesting objects, and both scientifically and as not leading to the
extermination of the species, would make a far preferable collection
to one of birds’ eggs. Let anyone who doubts this pick up upon some
gull-haunted island a score or so of the curious little globes made of
fragments of crab-shells cemented together, which lie all about, or
some of the dried frog-pellets of owls, over a marsh. He must then—or
he ought to—confess that such objects are more curious, if less pretty,
than birds’ eggs—which, however, as ornaments, nobody values in the
least—whilst by their very nature they teach us something in regard
to the habits of each species, which the latter do not. The pellets
of rooks, for instance, which I have found by the hundred, composed,
some entirely of innutritious vegetable materials, and others (almost
entirely) of earth, are most instructive from this point of view. In
fact, the results and tendencies springing out of this kind of collecting
would be wholly advantageous both to birds and to natural history;
so that one of the most useful things that could be started in these
“killing times” would be a club or fraternity of such collectors.
[2] The nest is contained within the hanging leaves, which are its
sole support—this, at least, is my impression. Now if the nest is made
_first_, on what does it rest—where is it—before the leaves wrap it round?
In the _tout ensemble_ the leaves correspond to the outer cup of the
nest, and the nest proper to the inner lining. It is the latter which, in
the ordinary building of a nest, comes last.
[3] Particularly and most remarkably in the case of spiders. In one
species, for instance, the males are of two patterns, as one may say,
each of which dances before the female, in its own way, which is very
different from that of the other (see Professor Poulton’s _Colours of
Animals_ in the “International Scientific Series”).
[4] By Mr. Hudson in _The Naturalist in La Plata_.
[5] In South America at least.
[6] This last, I should say, is as I imagine. Nobody tells one how the
bridge itself gets over.
[7] This floor, however, according to Professor Drummond, may be sunk
considerably below the level of the ground, which would make it, more
properly speaking, a basement.
[8] In spite of the damage done by them, however, white ants, by turning
over the soil, play an important part in the economy of nature, and
take, in the tropics, the place of earthworms. See Professor Drummond’s
_Tropical Africa_.
[9] _Wanderings in South America_, pp. 223-4.
[10] _Wanderings in South America._
[11] They had been noticed long before Bates’ paper, which was later, if
I mistake not, than _The Origin of Species_.
[12] The Rev. J. G. Wood, in _Homes without Hands_, p. 301.
[13] Were the pilot-fish to eat alone, he would not be under the shark’s
protection.
[14] From an old translation.
[15] _A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa._
[16] The gun is set with great exactitude and on a nice calculation, so
that the fox, if shot at all, is shot in the head. He dies, therefore,
suddenly, and without pain, whilst not expecting it—which some think the
best kind of death.
[17] The string must run, for a little way, behind the trigger (before
passing round a stick) in order to start the gun: and it is this part of
it that the fox gnaws. If we assume it to do so, as believing the trigger
to be the part of the gun from which the discharge comes, still there are
the two ideas—to gnaw the string, namely, thus preventing the discharge,
and to get behind the trigger whilst gnawing it.
[18] The word was used by the Portuguese in their great days, and may
have come from a West Coast tribe. It is unknown, I believe, to the
Kaffirs of South Africa.
[19] Or, as we are told _now_, the palm of the hand.
PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS