Gorillas & Chimpanzees

by R. L. Garner

On board the steamer that we sailed in for home, there was a young elephant that was sent by a trader for sale. He was kept in a strong stall, built on deck for his quarters. There were wide cracks between the boards, and the elephant had the habit of reaching his trunk through them in search of anything he might find. With his long, flexible proboscis extended from the side of the stall, he would twist and coil it in all manner of writhing forms. This was the crowning terror of the lives of those two apes: it was the bogie-man of their existence, and nothing could induce either of them to go near it. If they saw me go about it, they would scream and yell until I came away. If Aaron could get hold of me without getting too near it, he would cling to me until he would almost tear my clothes to keep me away from it. It was the one thing that Elisheba was afraid of, and the only one against which she ever gave me warning.

They did not manifest the same concern for others, but sat watching them without offering any protest. Even the stowaway who fed them and attended to their cage was permitted to approach it, but their solicitude for me was remarked by every man on board.

I was never able to tell what their opinion was of the thing. They were much less afraid of the elephant when they could see all of him, than they were of the trunk when they saw that alone. They may have thought the latter to be a big snake, but such is only conjecture.

At the beginning of the voyage I took six panels of my own cage and made a small cage for them. I taught them to drink water from a beer-bottle with a long neck that could be put through a mesh of the wires. They preferred this mode of drinking, and appeared to look upon it as an advanced idea. Elisheba always insisted on being served first, and being a female her wish was complied with. When she had finished, Aaron would climb up by the wires and take his turn. There is a certain sound or word which the chimpanzee always uses to express "good" or "satisfaction," and he made frequent use of it. He would drink a few swallows of the water and then utter the sound, whereupon Elisheba would climb up again and taste it. She seemed to think it was something better than she was drinking, but finding it the same as she had had, she would again give way for him. Every time he would use the sound she would take another taste and turn away, but she never failed to try it if he uttered the sound.

The boy who cared for them on the voyage was disposed to play tricks on them, and one of these ugly pranks was to turn the bottle up so that when they had finished drinking and took their lips away, the water would spill out and run down over them. For a time or two they declined to drink from the bottle while he was holding it, but when he let it go it would hang in such a position that they could not get the water out of it at all. At length Aaron solved the problem by climbing up one side of the cage, and getting on a level with the bottle, reached across the angle formed by the two sides of the cage and drank. In this position it was no matter to him how much the water ran out, it couldn't touch him. Elisheba watched him until she quite grasped the idea, when she climbed up in the same manner and slaked her thirst.

I scolded the boy for serving them with such cruel tricks, but it taught me another lesson of value concerning the mental resources of the chimpanzee, for no philosopher could have found a much better scheme to obviate the trouble than did this cunning little sage in the hour of necessity.

I have never regarded the training of animals as the true measure of their mental powers, but the real test is to reduce the animal to his own resources, and see how he will render himself under conditions that present new problems. Animals may be taught to do many things in a mechanical way, and without any motive that relates to the action; but when they can work out the solution without the aid of man, it is only the faculty of reason that can guide them.

One thing that Aaron could never figure out was what became of the chimpanzee that he saw in a mirror. I have seen him hunt for that mysterious ape for an hour at a time, and he broke a piece off a mirror I had in trying to find it, but he never succeeded.

I have held the glass firmly before him, and he would put his face up close to it, sometimes almost in contact. He would quietly gaze at the image, and then reach his hand around the glass to feel for it. Not finding it, he would peep around the side of it and then look into it again. He would take hold of it and turn it around; lay it on the ground, look at the image again, and put his hand under the edge of it. The look of inquiry in that quaint face was so striking as to make one pity him. But he was hard to discourage, and continued the search whenever he had the mirror.

Elisheba never worried herself much about it. When she saw the image in the glass she seemed to recognise it as one of her kind, but when it would vanish she let it go without trying to find it. In fact, she often turned away from it as though she did not admire it. She rarely ever took hold of the glass, and never felt behind it for the other ape.