Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco" became metamorphosed into "Jocko," and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more disfigurement to Battell's sober account than 'cutting off an article.' Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon "qu'il ne peut parler 'quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que les autres animaux'"; and again, Purchas' affirmation, "He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them," stands in the French version, "un pongo lui enleva un petit negre qui passa un 'an' entier dans la societe de ces animaux."
After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly remarks, that all the 'Jockos' and 'Orangs' hitherto brought to Europe were young; and he suggests that, in their adult condition, they might be as big as the Pongo or 'great Orang'; so that, provisionally, he regarded the Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And perhaps this was as much as the state of knowledge at the time warranted. But how it came about that Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's 'Mandrill' to his own 'Jocko,' and confounded the former with so totally different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily intelligible.
Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,* and expressed his belief that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species,—a large one, the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: that the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian Orang; and that the young animals from Africa, observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young Pongos. ([Footnote] *'Histoire Naturelle', Suppl. tome 7eme, 1789.)
In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 1778, a very good account and figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Camper, published (1779) an essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a male, all of which, from the state of their skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to have been young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the adult condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to the specific distinctness of the true East Indian Orang.
"The Orang," says he, "differs not only from the Pigmy of Tyson and from the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, but also by its whole external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great toes much smaller in proportion."* ([Footnote] *Camper, 'Oeuvres', i. p. 56.) And again, "The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tailless Ape, which the Greeks, and especially Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,—IT IS AN ANIMAL OF A PECULIAR SPECIES, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs of voice and the skeleton in the following chapters" (l. c. p. 64).
A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in the Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an active member of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, published, in the second part of the Transactions of that Society,* a Description of the Island of Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 and 1781, and, among much other interesting matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. ([Footnote] *Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel. Derde Druk. 1826. The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none exceeded 2 1/2 feet in length. The larger sort, often regarded as a chimera, continues Radermacher, would perhaps long have remained so, had it not been for the exertions of the Resident at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning from Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe.
Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus:—"Herewith I send your Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long ago I offered more than a hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five feet high) an Orang which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock. For a long time we did our best to take the frightful beast alive in the dense forest about half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious were we not to let him escape; but it was necessary to take care that he did not revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking off heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and dashing them at us. This game lasted till four o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to shoot him; in which I succeeded very well, and indeed better than I ever shot from a boat before; for the bullet went just into the side of his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We got him into the prow still living, and bound him fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. All Pontiana came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives his height from the head to the heel as 49 inches.
(FIGURE 7.—The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucae.)
A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von Wurmb, who at this time held a post in the Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of the Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his careful description of it, entitled "Beschrijving van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same volume of the Batavian Society's Transactions. After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description he states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* ([Footnote] *"Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794." that the specimen was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed in the collection of the Prince of Orange; "unfortunately," he continues, "we hear that the ship has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the letter in which this passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in his posthumous papers, published in the fourth part of the Transactions of the Batavian Society, there is a brief description, with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet high.
Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb's descriptions are based, ever reach Europe? It is commonly supposed that they did; but I doubt the fact. For, appended to the memoir 'De l'Ourang-outang,' in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome i., pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb's papers, and continuing thus:—"Heretofore, this kind of ape had never been known in Europe. Radermacher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one of these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, in height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at Mayence, which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of the form than of the real size of the parts."