In addition to those I have seen in a wild state, I have seen about ten in captivity. Two of those were my own. They were good subjects for study, and I made the best use of them for the time I had them.
I accomplished one thing while in the jungle, for which I feel a just sense of pride, and that was making a gorilla take a portrait of himself. This will interest the amateur in the art of snapshots, and I shall relate it.
I selected a place in the forest where I found some tracks of the animal along the edge of a dense thicket of batuna. Under cover of the foliage I set up two pairs of stakes which were crossed at the tops, and to them was lashed a short pole forming something like a sawbuck. To this was fastened the camera, to which had been attached a trigger made of bamboo splits. One end of a string was fastened to the trigger, and the other end carried under a yoke to a distance of eight feet from the lens. At this point was attached a fresh plantain stalk and a nice bunch of the red fruit of the batuna. Upon this point the camera was focussed, the trigger was set, and it was left to await the gorilla. That afternoon I returned to find that something had taken the bait, broken the string, sprung the trigger and snapped the camera. I developed the plate, but could find no image of anything except the leaves in front of it. I repeated the experiment with the same results, but could not understand how anything could steal the bait and yet not be shown in the picture. The third time I did this I was gratified to find the image of a gorilla, and also to discover the cause why the others had not succeeded. The deep shadows of the forest make it difficult to take a photograph without giving it a time exposure, and when the sun is under a cloud or on the wrong side of an object it is quite impossible. The leaves that were shown in the first two plates were only those which were most exposed to the light, and all the lower part of the picture was without detail. In the third trial it could be seen that the sun was shining at the instant of exposure. A part of the body of the gorilla was in the light, but most of it was in the shadow of the leaves above it. The left side of the head and face were quite distinct, also the left shoulder and arm. The hand and bait could not have been distinguished except by their context. The right side of the head, arm, and most of the body were lost. The picture showed that he had taken the bait with his left hand, and that he was in a crouching posture at the moment. While the photograph was very poor as a work of art, it was full of interest as an experiment.
Although it did not result in getting a good picture, I do not regard the effort as a failure. It shows at least that such a thing is possible, and by careful efforts often repeated it could be made a means of obtaining some novel pictures. A little ingenuity would widen the scope of this device, and make it possible to photograph birds, elephants, and everything else in the forest. When I return to that place on a like journey, I shall carry the scheme into better effect.
[CHAPTER XVII]
OTHER APES
In the various records that constitute the history of these apes are found many novel and incoherent tales, but all of them appear to rest upon some basis of truth. In order to arrive at some more definite knowledge concerning them, we may review the data at our command. The first record in the annals of the world that alludes to these man-like apes, is that of Hanno, who made a voyage from Carthage to the west coast of Africa, nearly 500 years before the Christian era. He described an ape which was found in the locality about Sierra Leone. It is singular that the description which he gave of those apes should coincide so fully with those known of the present day, but to my mind it is quite certain that the ape of which he gives an account was neither a gorilla nor chimpanzee, nor is there anything to show that either of these ever occupied that part of the world, or that any similar type has done so. It is clear from the evidence that the ape described by him was not an anthropoid, but was the large, dog-faced monkey technically called cynocephalus. These animals are found all along the north coast of the Gulf of Guinea, but there is not a trace of any true ape along it north of Cameroon River, which empties into the sea about 4° north of the equator. Here begins the first trace of the chimpanzee. In passing along the windward coast, casual reports are current to the effect that gorillas and chimpanzees occupy the interior north of there; but when these reports are sifted down to solid facts, it always turns out to be a big baboon or monkey upon which the story rests. Its likeness to man as described by Hanno was doubtless the work of fancy, and the name troglodytes which he gave to it shows that he knew but little of its habits, or cared but little for the exactness of his statements.
The account given by Henry Battel, in 1590, contains a thread of truth woven into a web of fantasy. He must have heard the stories he relates, or seen the specimens along the coast north of the Congo, and there are certain facts which point to this conclusion. The name pongo which he gave to one of them belongs to the Fiot tongue, which is spoken by the native tribes around Loango. Those people apply the name to the gorilla, and is commonly understood to be synonymous with the name njina, used by the tribes north of there, and always applied to the gorilla. To me, however, it appears to coincide with the name ntyii as used by the Esyira people for another ape which is described in the chapter devoted to gorillas. It was from Loango that Dr. Falkenstein secured an ape under that name in 1876. It is singular that Baron Wurmb, in 1780, makes use of this same name pongo for an orang. I have not been able to learn where he acquired this name, but it appears to be a native Fiot name, and the history of their language is fairly well known for more than 400 years. The other name "Enjocko," given by Battel to the other ape, is beyond a doubt a corruption of the native name ntyigo (ntcheego), and this name belongs north of the Congo from Mayumba to Gaboon. He may have inferred that these apes occupied Angola, but there is not a vestige of proof that any ape exists in that part of Africa. Even the native tribes of that part have no indigenous name for either one of these apes. Other parts of his account are erroneous, and while he may have believed that those apes "go in bodies to kill many natives that travel in the wood," and the natives may have told him such a thing, the apes do not practise such a habit. With all their sagacity they have no idea of the unity of action. If a band of them were attacked, they would no doubt act together in their defence, but it is not to be believed that they ever preconcert any plan of attack. Neither do these apes ever assault elephants. He is one animal they hold in mortal dread. I have incidentally mentioned elsewhere the conduct of my two kulus on board the ship when they saw a young elephant. Chico, the big ape that has also been mentioned, was often vicious and stubborn. Whenever he refused to obey his keeper or became violent, an elephant was brought in sight of his cage. On seeing it he became as docile as a lamb, and showed every sign of the most intense fear. Mr. Bailey himself told me of the dread both of his apes had for an elephant. Battel was also wrong in the mode he described of the mother carrying its young, and the apes using sticks or clubs.
The ape known as "Mafuka," which was exhibited in Dresden in 1875, was also brought from the Loango coast, and it is possible that this is the ape to which the native name pongo really belonged. This specimen in many respects conforms to the description of the ntyii given, but the idea suggested by certain writers that "Mafuka" was a cross between the gorilla and chimpanzee is not, to my mind, a tenable supposition. It would be difficult to believe that two apes of different species in a wild state would cross, but to believe that two that belonged to different genera would do so is even more illogical.