f the royal family behind
them, for fear of a surprisal. It was this royal cub which we killed,
and the Queen his mother having been distractedly inconsolable for the
loss of her darling, the old monarch had set out by night to try if
possible to recover it; and on not finding it, he seized on my boy in
its place, carried him home in safety to his Queen, and gave her him to
nurse! She did so. Yes she positively did nurse him at her breast for
three months, and never child throve better than he did. By that time he
was beginning to walk, and aim at speech, by imitating every voice he
heard, whether of beast or bird; and it had struck the monsters as a
great loss, that they had no means of teaching their young sovereign to
speak, at which art he seemed so apt. This led to the scheme of stealing
his own mother to be his instructor, which they effected in the most
masterly style, binding and gagging her in her own house, and carrying
her from a populous hamlet in the fair forenoon, without having been
discovered.

Agnes immediately took her boy under her tuition, and was soon given to
understand that her will was to be the sole law of the community; and
all the while that they detained her, they never refused her aught, save
to take her home again. Our little daughter she had named Beatrice,
after her maternal grandmother. She was born six months and six days
after Agnes's abstraction. She spoke highly of the pongos, of their
docility, generosity, warmth of affection to their mates and young ones,
and of their irresistible strength. At my wife's injunctions, or from
her example, they all wore aprons: and the females had let the hair of
their heads grow long. It was glossy black, and neither curled nor
woolly, and on the whole, I cannot help having a lingering affection for
the creatures. They would make the most docile, powerful, and
affectionate of all slaves; but they come very soon to their growth, and
are but shortlived, in that way approximating to the rest of the brute
creation. They live entirely on fruits, roots, and vegetables, and taste
no animal food whatever.

I asked Agnes much of the civility of their manner to her, and she
always describes it as respectful and uniform. For awhile she never
thought herself quite safe when near the Queen, but the dislike of the
latter to her arose entirely out of the boundless affection for the boy.
No mother could possibly be fonder of her offspring than this
affectionate cr