Evidence as to Mans Place In Nature | Page 5

very thicke; and it is of a dunnish colour.
"He differeth not from a man but in his legs; for they have no calfe.
Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in the
nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the
trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit that they
find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They
cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. The
people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires
where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning when they are gone,
the Pongoes 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 the elephants which come to feed where they be, and so
beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will
runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive
because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them; but
yet they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrowes.

"The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast
clasped about her, so that when the countrie people kill any of the
females they take the young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother.
"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great
heaps of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forest."*
[footnote] *Purchas' marginal note, p. 982:--"The Pongo a giant ape.
He told me in conference with him, that one of these pongoes tooke a
negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not
those which they surprise at unawares, except they look on them; which
he avoyded. He said their highth was like a man's, but their bignesse
twice as great. I saw the negro boy. What the other monster should be
he hath forgotten to relate; and these papers came to my hand since his
death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned.
Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned."
It does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which Battell
speaks. Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually spelled
Loango on our maps. Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues
northward from Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or Kilonga,
Manikesocke, and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. The
Cape Negro of Battell, however, cannot be the modern Cape Negro in
16 degrees S., since Loango itself is in 4 degrees S. latitude. On the
other hand, the "great river called Banna" corresponds very well with
the "Camma" and "Fernand Vas," of modern geographers, which form
a great delta on this part of the African coast.
Now this "Camma" country is situated about a degree and a-half south
of the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the line lies the
Gaboon, and a degree or so north of that, the Money River--both well
known to modern naturalists as localities where the largest of man-like
Apes has been obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the word Engeco,
or N'schego, is applied by the natives of these regions to the smaller of
the two great Apes which inhabit them; so that there can be no rational
doubt that Andrew Battell spoke of that which he knew of his own
knowledge, or, at any rate, by immediate report from the natives of
Western Africa. The "Engeco," however, is that "other monster" whose

nature Battell "forgot to relate," while the name "Pongo"--applied to the
animal whose characters and habits are so fully and carefully
described--seems to have died out, at least in its primitive form and
signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not only in Battell's time,
but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally different sense from
that in which he employs it.
For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I have just
quoted, contains "A Description and Historicall Declaration of the
Golden Kingdom of Guinea, etc. etc. Translated from the Dutch, and
compared also with the Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that--
"The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de
Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalves (Cape
Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles
from St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At
the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe,
whereon it beateth mightily with the streame