Having thirteen ribs on either side, and each rib being attached to a separate bone of the spine, the Gorilla has therefore one more spine bone (vertebra) than man, and is all the more long-backed. Moreover, the breast-bone, which is on the front of the chest, is broader in the Gorilla than in man, and at least one-third longer, thus adding to the capacity of the cavity of the chest, making it of about 500 cubic inches; that of man being 330 cubic inches.
The lungs and heart of the great Ape resemble those of man, and the great arteries are given off from the main blood-vessel in the same manner in both.
The Gorillas appear to be great eaters, and to roam about, either in small bands or alone, seeking for their favourite food in the forest, and the plantations close by. Sometimes they seek the high plains and rough ground of the hills, especially where certain trees are found, and they invariably cling to the forests about water. They eat the cabbage of the palm nut tree, and partake of the papau, banana, and amomum fruits. Wild sugar-canes attract them, and they are especially fond of the succulent white parts of the pine-apple and its leaves. Some hard kinds of nuts are readily cracked with their huge teeth, which are also brought into use in tearing open the stems of juicy plants.
All the examinations of the dead bodies of the Gorillas prove their diet to consist of such things, and the remains of berries, pine-apple leaves, and other vegetable matters were found, but not flesh or anything like it. This food is, however, not very nourishing, and it must be taken in large quantities and frequently. Hence the animal must not only have good climbing powers to get his food, but a large stomach and intestines to digest it rapidly. There is no doubt that the figure of the Gorilla testifies to its kind of food. The abdomen is very large, and sticks out when the animal is in the erect position; its paunch is vast, and therefore the bones which support it below, or the haunch bones, are very wide.
These haunch-bones form part of a girdle of bones which, in a skeleton, unites the legs to the spine, and which contains, in living animals, the bladder, part of the reproductive organs, and the unborn young.
It is called the pelvis, or basin-shaped bone (being very unlike one); its upper edge is formed by the expanded haunch, or ilium bones (ilium, or gut, alluding to the support given by the bone to the bowels), and its lower one by the bones on which men and Gorillas sit, or the hip (the ischium, or hip-bone). In the Gorilla the pelvis is enormous, and the edge of the haunches is long, so as to give attachment to the muscles which enclose the vast digestive apparatus behind and at the side, but it does not form a graceful curve behind and below, for certain muscles which are of great use to man in maintaining the erect posture, and which straighten the thigh in the body, are weak in the great Ape. These muscles originate outside and below the top of the haunch, and when large and strong, require a peculiar shape of bone: they form in man what does not exist in the Gorilla, and that in which the Hottentot Venus glories. But the Gorilla can sit just as well upon a pair of short and expanded hip-bones (ischial tuberosities, in the language of anatomists), and as he has no tail (the bones forming it in other Monkeys being diminished in number and united in a short process), he can do so for a considerable time with comfort. The sitting in the upright position is moderately easy to the Gorilla, and the older ones evidently often do so. They squat and rest their broad backs against a tree, and as this is a very constant and favourite position, they wear a good deal of their back hair off.
The fate of a hunter is thus given by Du Chaillu, who pledges himself to three very debatable points: that the Gorilla meets its enemy erect; stands and fights; and kills by a blow across the abdomen:—“We set off towards a dark valley where Gambo said we should find our prey. The Gorilla chooses the darkest, gloomiest forests, for its home is found on the edges of the clearings only when in search of plantains, sugar-canes, or pine-apples. Often they choose for their peculiar haunt a wood, so dark that even at midday one can scarce see ten yards. This makes it the more necessary to wait till the monstrous beast approaches near before shooting, in order that the first shot may be fatal. It does not often let the hunter reload. Our little party separated, as is the custom, to stalk the wood in various directions. Gambo and I kept together. One brave fellow went alone, in a direction where he thought he could find a Gorilla. The other three took another course. We had been about an hour separated, when Gambo and I heard a gun fired, but a little way from us, and presently another. We were already on our way to the spot, where we hoped to see a Gorilla slain, when the forest began to resound with the most terrific roars. Gambo seized my arm in great agitation, and we hurried on, both filled with a dreadful and sickening alarm. We had not gone far when our worst fears were realised. The poor brave fellow, who had gone off alone, was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, and I thought, at first, quite dead. His bowels were protruding through the lacerated abdomen. Beside him lay his gun. The stock was broken, and the barrel was bent and flattened. It bore plainly the marks of the Gorilla’s teeth. We picked him up, and I dressed his wounds as well as I could with rags torn from my clothes. When I had given him a little brandy to drink he came to himself, and was able, but with great difficulty, to speak. He said he had met the Gorilla suddenly, and face to face, and that it had not attempted to escape. It was, he said, a large male, and seemed very savage. It was in a gloomy part of the wood, and the darkness I suppose made him miss. He said he took good aim, and fired when the beast was only about eight yards off. The ball merely wounded it in the side, and it at once began beating its breasts, and with the greatest rage advanced upon him. To run away was impossible, for he would have been caught in the jungle before he had gone a dozen steps. He stood his ground, and, as quickly as he could, reloaded his gun. Just as he raised it to fire, the Gorilla dashed it out of his hand, the gun going off in the fall; and then in an instant, and with a terrible roar, the animal gave him a tremendous blow with its immense open paw, frightfully lacerating the abdomen, and with this single blow laying bare part of the intestines. As he sank bleeding to the ground, the monster seized the gun, and the poor hunter thought he would have his brains dashed out with it. But the Gorilla seemed to have looked upon this also as an enemy, and in his rage almost flattened the barrel between his strong jaws.”
In spite of this anecdote, and some drawings by Du Chaillu, which represent the Gorilla standing erect, it is very doubtful, from anatomical reasons, whether this is possible. The comparative smallness of some of the most important muscles in the Gorilla, which in man produce the erect position, has already been noticed, and it is now necessary, for the same reasons, to examine into the nature of the lower limbs.
The thigh-bone (called from the Latin, femur) of the Gorilla is shorter than the arm-bone, the reverse being the case in man; and hence the Ape appears to be too short in the legs for its long body and arms. It is stout and rather straight, and has not the forward bend of the same bone in man: moreover, some well-marked ridges which run down the back of it, and which were exceedingly well developed in the oldest races of men, are deficient in the Gorilla. The same may be said for the markings on the bone, which indicate the presence of powerful muscles whose action is to keep the thigh straight with the back—or in other words, to keep the body erect. Below the knee are the two bones of the leg: the inner one, or shin-bone (the tibia), is very short for the height of the animal, and the joint on its lower part, on which moves the ankle-bone, is not so deep and perfect as in man, whose weight is constantly to be borne on it whilst it is being moved in walking. The little outside bone, called fibula, or the clasp-bone, in the Gorilla is so made that it adds singularly to the inability to maintain the erect posture whilst walking, and even in standing still. The lower end of this bone in man forms the prominence outside the ankle, and covers and protects the outside of the topmost bone of the ankle, to which the foot is attached. It strengthens it and prevents that turning in of the foot, which is antagonistic to the placing the sole flat on the surface of the earth, so that it can receive the weight of the body on its broad space and allow of the position so characteristic of man. In the Gorilla this bone does not come down as far as the ankle, and all the safeguards against intwisting are not present. Why, is clear enough, because the Gorilla treads on the outside of its foot-like hand, and always has the sole turned in. There are some other points which require to be noticed, however, about the leg. It is short and evidently wanting in “calf.” It is therefore deficient in that symmetry of which many mortals are most proud. Nevertheless, it has a high instep, also a human desideratum; but in spite of this the ankles are thick and shapeless-looking. The tendon which reaches from the calf to the back heel-bone (os calcis) gives a slender appearance to the lower limb of man, but there is no myth about a Gorilla having been held by that slim spot and dipped in Styx, to be for ever invulnerable elsewhere. This tendon (tendo Achillis) so characteristic of man, is supplied with muscular fibres close to its insertion into the heel-bone in the Gorilla, which thus gains in strength what it loses in elegance. A snapping of the tendon would be indeed a grave matter in the huge Ape, and Nature has thus provided against this accident.
