hat of a Gibbon, may well be audible for twice
that distance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the Gibbons and
Chimpanzees with their teeth, the Gorilla may, probably enough,
do either or both; nor is there anything to be said against either
Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is proved that the
Orang-Utan habitually performs that feat.

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old, before the world
it is not a little surprising that the assertions of a recent traveller,
who, so far as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little more
than repeat, on his own authority, the statements of Savage and of Ford,
should have met with so much and such bitter opposition. If subtraction
be made of what was known before, the sum and substance of what M. Du
Chaillu has affirmed as a matter of his own observation respecting the
Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his
chest with his fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, or very
much worth disputing about, in this statement.

With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells
us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common
Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the
'nschiego mbouve', which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare
kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar
note, resembling "Kooloo."

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of leaves, and the
common Chimpanzee, according to that eminently trustworthy observer
Dr. Savage, makes a sound like "Whoo-whoo,"--the grounds of the summary
repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters have
been met are not obvious.

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's work, then, it is
not because I discern any inherent improbability in his assertions
respecting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion
on his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative
remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable
confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject
whatsoever.

It may be truth, but it is not evidence.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: REGNUM CONGO: hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI AFRICANI
QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per Philippum
Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta,
num Latio sermone donata ab Au