The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

So we must go to such tangled virgin forests as those of Sumatra, Borneo, and Malacca, to find the long-armed tailless Gibbons,[157] which once wandered over Europe, but now roam no further than Southern Asia, where they swing themselves along from branch to branch by means of their lengthy arms, which are so out of proportion to their legs that when they stand upright they can touch the ground with their knuckles. These gibbons are gentle creatures, with not too much brain, but wonderfully elegant and agile, which is more than can be said for the intelligent Orangutan[158] or Mias which wanders in the same forest. He has shorter arms, only reaching to the ankle, and he climbs half upright from tree-top to tree-top, grasping the boughs and swaying slowly onwards, or holds on by his toe-thumbs while he stretches up to the more slender branches to gather the fruit and young buds.

A strange object he looks, a great red, hairy, man-like creature, between four and five feet high, thrusting his huge black face from out of the dense foliage as he devours the Durian and Mangosteen fruits, seated comfortably in a fork of the tree, and then if disturbed he is off far more quickly than you would suppose possible for such a heavy creature, running, climbing, and creeping half upright till he is lost in the forest. He rarely comes down, except to shamble across some open space from one wood to another, or to drink in the river, where the natives say the crocodile attacks him, but he beats him and carries off the victory; while in the trees his only enemy is the python, which tries to encircle him in its coils. Nor does he often wander in company, for Mr. Wallace tells us that he never saw a father and mother orangutan together, though either of them may be seen with the young ones. He seems to lead, on the whole, a solitary life, and when the sun goes down retires into a nest of leaves low down in one of the trees, and sleeps till it is broad daylight and the dew is dried off the leaves.

But, though the orangutan is both strong and cunning, he is not nearly so human as the intelligent and docile Chimpanzee, which shares with the fierce Gorilla the dense forests of palms, amomas, and gigantic tropical trees of Africa, where the grass and brush grow fifteen feet or more high, and the native man scarcely dares to venture for fear of the man-like apes. In these endless African forests there is quite a population of these wild creatures; bald-headed apes which build bowers in the trees; the Soko, a kind of gorilla, which loves to steal the native children, and always defends himself by biting off the fingers or paws of his enemy; the true chimpanzee, so human in its affection and its fun when it is caught and tamed; and the fierce gorilla, between five and six feet high, which rules as master in Western Africa near the equator.

Though each of these tailless apes has its own advantages, yet the gorilla is, on the whole, most advanced and nearest to man in structure. But his legs are still too short and thick, and his arms long, reaching to his knee; and the large projections on the back of his neck bones prevent him throwing his head well back, so that he stoops like a hunchback, while his feet are twisted so that he treads on the outside and not on the sole. His eye-teeth are huge, his eyes deeply sunken, his jaws heavy and strong, but his brain is not one-half the size of that of the lowest races of men, and though it has foldings very like those of the human brain, these are larger and less complex. When he walks it is not upright but on all fours, resting the knuckles of his hand on the ground; but when he is in his natural home—the trees—then his long strong arms and broad naked palmed hands grasp the boughs with immense power, and pull his heavy body upwards as he climbs hand over hand, his twisted toe-thumbed feet clutching the branches below far better than a straight foot could do.

Fig. 66.

The Gorilla at home.

And so he lives with his wife and family in the thick solitary parts of the West African forests, feeding only on fruits and leaves, so that his stomach becomes large and heavy with the amount of food necessary to nourish him. He is more sociable than the orangutan, for several will travel together, but he asks for no shelter beyond the trees and the nest of leaves, which is his home and the cradle of his young ones, nor does he seem to attack other animals except in self-defence, and then his gigantic strength and his formidable teeth are his chief weapons, and woe betide the creature that comes within his grasp.

It is strange to picture to ourselves these huge apes, living in the depths of lonely forests and looking like human savages to those who can catch a glimpse of them, so that the ancient Carthaginians landing on the shores took them for “wild men” and “hairy women.” We know very little of their daily life, for they are seldom seen except by those who hunt them, and who have but little chance of watching their habits. But all that we do know teaches us that in their rough way they have developed into strangely man-like though savage creatures, while at the same time they are so brutal and so limited in their intelligence that we cannot but look upon them as degenerate animals, equal neither in beauty, strength, discernment, nor in any of the nobler qualities, to the faithful dog, the courageous lion, or the half-reasoning elephant.