gumentum,' to figure two of these "Simiae magnatum
deliciae." So much of the plate as contains these apes is faithfully
copied in the woodcut (Fig. 1), and it will be observed that they
are tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and about the size of
Chimpanzees.

It may be that these apes are as much figments of the imagination of the
ingenious brothers as the winged, two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon
which adorns the same plate; or, on the other hand, it may be that the
artists have constructed their drawings from some essentially faithful
description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And, in either case, though
these figures are worth a passing notice, the oldest trustworthy and
definite accounts of any animal of this kind date from the 17th century,
and are due to an Englishman.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--SIMIAE MAGNATUM DELICIAE.--De Bry, 1598.]

The first edition of that most amusing old book, 'Purchas his
Pilgrimage,' was published in 1613, and therein are to be found many
references to the statements of one whom Purchas terms "Andrew Battell
(my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel
Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, at his city of Saint
Paul, and with him went farre into the countrey of Angola"; and again,
"my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of Congo many
yeares," and who, "upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among whom
he was a sergeant of a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in
the woodes." From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas was amazed
to hear "of a kinde of Great Apes, if they might so bee termed, of the
height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with
strength proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like
men and women in their whole bodily shape. [2] They lived on such wilde
fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the night time lodged on
the trees."

This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements
than a passage in the third chapter of the second part of another
work--'Purchas his Pilgrimes,' published in 1625, by the same
author--which has been often, though hardly ever quite rightly, cited.
The chapter is entitled, "The strange adventures of Andrew Battell,
of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived
there and in the adjoining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And the
sixth section of this chapter is headed--"Of the Provinces of Bong