on of Mr. to be
German attendant is laboriously enunciating the few sentences in English in which he relates the history and describes the habits also when he drinks out of a bottle, grasping it in both hands, Pongo, and his friends, —August, the chimpanzee, securing the much-disputed blanket, he transfers the bottle to his and the dog Plea. As the audience collect, the depression of foot, holding it firmly with the toes. His slight, flat, small- disillusion is for etowin read in their faces. What was the necessity heeled feet are more like those of a man than the feet of any other g away the object of so much reasonably expected monkey, we are told, but the likeness ceases with the toes; these
are fingers, and have all the movements of fingers ; nor is the face human below the brow and eyes. The absence of a nasal promontory, the wide, sunk black nostrils, like those of a bippopotamns on a very small Elude, the semicircular wee the mouth ; the thick, calf-like tongue, and something in the action of the jaw and throat when the animal lifts up his head and one sees him from the side which also reminds one of a calf, form an unlikeness to the human race as forcible as the resemblance in other respects is striking.
Mr. Pongo is in excellent health now, but has had two illnesses since he was sold to Dr. Falkenstein, of the Prus- sian Natural History Expedition, for two gallons of rum, and exchanged his chain in an African village for the more tolerable conditions of his European career. Perhaps he was too young when the hunters took him to have any dreams now of the deep, coo], dark forest, the great luscious fruits, the glorious climbs, and bounds, and fights, the long migrating journeys of the grey-coated community, the booming, inarticulate speech which was the language of his tribe ; and it may be that he is happy enough in his artificial life. It includes all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of civilisation. He goes to bed at eight every evening, "in a very comfortable bed, and sleeps till eight in the morning," his attendant told us, "always lying on his side, with his hand under his cheek on the pillow, like a man," and he eats numer- ous meals with unfailing appetite. Once a day he has an ample repast of roast meat and potatoes ; and his breakfast, luncheon, and supper consist of milk, wine-and-water, bread, rice, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. He is on the best of terms with his attendant, and it was very funny to see him lying negligently on his back in a slanting-upwards position on the ladder, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, one hand dangling downwards, and the other thrown round the neck of his friend, as the latter repeated his brief formula to a freshly-arrived batch of spectators. Mr. Pongo had quite an irresistible air of enjoying the proceeding ; he rolled his tongue about, and when the sentence, "His present value is five thousand pounds I" was spoken, he withdrew his arm, gave the speaker a friendly cuff, as who should say, "What! you're at it again, are you ? Fetch 'em with figures, my boy l" and dived rapidly over and under the rung of the ladder, looking at the audience upside-down from between his own legs with a composed gravity infinitely comical. Ile never attempts to stand upright ; he is too heavy, his attendant explained, and his legs are not yet strong enough to support his weight. But it is ex- pected that he will grow to a height of six feet, and then stand upright, as the full-grown gorilla has been seen by travellers to do. At present his mode of progression is like that of a tumbler -who is about to be picked up suddenly by a pinch behind from the clown in the ring. He walks on his feet and his hands—the latter turned in, fist-shape, and looking like small dub-feet—and his back slopes gently down from his broad shoulders to his thin, misshapen flanks. Mr. Pongo is an interesting, if not precisely a fascinating animal, and the strongest proof of his quaint sugges- tion of kinship with his visitors is that one is never free from a queer sense of bad manners in asking questions about him before his grave, black face ; and that one leaves him with a wieh that be might have something to do, or at least something to read.
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