The accompanying illustration, which seems to embody
all the requirements of Darwin, as representing our maternal progenitor, is from an old book by Joannes Zahn, published in 1696—and there figures as “Ourani Outains.”
Darwin says that the men of the period wore tails, and if they were no longer than that in this illustration (which is copied from the same book), they can hardly be said to be unbecoming—still that is a matter for taste—they are certainly more graceful than if they had been rat-like, or like a greyhound, or toy terrier. Many old authors speak of tailed men in Borneo and Java, and not only were men so adorned, but women. Peter Martyr says that in a region called Inzaganin, there is a tailed race—these laboured under the difficulty of being unable to move them like animals—but as he observes, they were stiff like those of fishes and crocodiles—so much so, that when they wanted to sit down, they had to use seats with holes in them.
Ptolemy and Ctesias speak of them, and Pliny says there were men in Ceylon who had long hairy tails, and were of remarkable swiftness of foot. Marco Polo tells us: “Now you must know that in this kingdom of Lambri[1] there are men with tails; these tails are of a palm in length, and have no hair on them. These people live in the mountains, and are a kind of wild men. Their tails are about the thickness of a dog’s.” Many modern travellers have heard of hairy and tailed people in the Malay Archipelago, and Mr. St. John, writing of Borneo, says that he met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of a race which inhabited the north-east coast of the island. These tails were about four inches long, and so stiff that they had to use perforated seats. The Chinese also declare that in the mountains above Canton there is a race of tailed men. M. de Couret wrote about the Niam Niams, tailed men, who, he says, are living in Abyssinia or Nubia, having tails at least two inches long. We all know the old Lord Monboddo’s theory that mankind had originally tails—nay, he went further, and said that some were born with them now—a fact which will be partially borne out by any military medical inspecting officer, who in the course of his practice has met with men whose “os coccygis” has been prolonged, so as to form a pseudo tail, which would unfit the man for the cavalry, although he would still be efficient as an infantry soldier.
Here is a very fine picture from a fresco at Pompeii representing tailed men, or, maybe, æsthetic young Fauns, treading out the vintage.
But tailed men are as nothing, compared to the wonderful beings that peopled the earth in bygone times.
It seems a pity that there are none of them now living, and that, consequent upon never having seen them, we are apt to imagine that they never existed, but were simply the creatures of the writer’s brain. They were articles of belief until comparatively recent times, and were familiar in Queen Elizabeth’s time, as we learn from Othello’s defence of himself (Act i. sc. 3):—
“And of the Cannibals that each other eat,