Cassell's Natural History, Vol. 1 (of 6) — John Shaqi
Cassell's Natural History, Vol. 1 (of 6)
Science
Cassell's Natural History, Vol. 1 (of 6)
Animal behavior; Animals; Zoology
Battel speaks of two monsters which excited the fears of the natives.
“The greatest is called _Pongo_, in their language, and the lesser is
called _Engeco_. This Pongo is in all proportion like a man, but that
he is more like a giant in stature than a man: for he is very tall and
hath a man’s face, hollow eyed, with long haire upon his brows. His
bodie is full of haire, but not very thick, and it is of a brownish
colour. He differeth not from man but in his legs, for they have no
calfe. He goeth always upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped on
the nape of his necke, when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in
the trees, and build shelter for the raine. They feed upon the fruit
that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eat no kind of
flesh. They cannot speak, and have no understanding more than a beast.
The people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods, make fires
when they sleepe in the night: and in the morning when they are gone,
Pongo will come and sit about the fire till it goeth out, for they
have no understanding to lay the wood together. They goe many together
and kill many negroes that travaile in the woods. Many times they
fall upon elephants which come to feed where they may be, and so beat
them with their clubbed fists and pieces of wood that they will runne
roaring away from them. These Pongos are never taken alive, because
they are so strong ten men cannot hold one of them; but they take many
of their young ones with poisoned arrows. The young Pongo hangeth on
its mother’s belly with its hands clasped about her, so that when any
of the country people kill the females, they take the young which hangs
fast upon his mother. When they die amongst themselves, they cover the
dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which are commonly found in
the forests.”
The Pongo appears to be the Gorilla, and Battel tells much truth about
it, mixed up with absurd fiction, whilst the Engeco, or as it is called
by the natives of the Gaboon, the _enche-eko_, is the Chimpanzee.
Early in this century, in 1819, Bowdich says, in a description of a
mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, “that the favourite and
most extraordinary subject of conversation when in the Gaboon River
was the _Ingena_. This is an animal like the Orang-Utan, but much
exceeding it in size, being five feet high and four feet across the
shoulders. Its paw was said to be even more disproportioned in its
breadth, and one blow of it is said to be fatal. It is commonly seen by
the natives when they travel to Kaybe, lurking in the bush to destroy
passengers, not to eat them, for it feeds principally on wild honey
which abounds.”
[Illustration: MALE GORILLA.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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