Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/217

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natives, made a rather remarkable description of the animals, part of which is as follows:


Its height is above five feet, it is disproportionately broad across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the Engé-eco (the chimpanzee). With age it becomes gray, which fact has given rise to the report that both animals are seen of different colors. . . .

Their gait is shuffling, the motion of the body, which is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than those of the chimpanzee it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal it makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground and then giving the body a half jumping, half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not to flex the fingers as does the chimpanzee, resting on the knuckles, but to extend them, thus making a fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes the walking posture to which it is said to be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing the arms upward. They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the chimpanzees; the females generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants all agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band; that when the young males grow up a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the community. The silly stories about their carrying off women from the native towns, and vanquishing the elephants, related by voyagers and widely copied into books, are unhesitatingly denied. They have been averred of the chimpanzee, but this is still more preposterous. They probably had their origin in the marvelous accounts given by the natives, of the Engé-ena, to credulous traders.

Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of the chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches supported by the crotches and limbs of trees; they afford no shelter, and are occupied only at night.

They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, never running from man as does the chimpanzee. They