It is the great front teeth, the large space hidden by the visible nose, the prominent upper, and the great length of the lower jaw, which give such a Baboon-like appearance to the face of the Chimpanzee’s skull; and this is interesting, for there may have been a kinship between the two tribes.
These man-shaped Apes, the Gorilla, the Nschiego Mbouvé, the Koolo-Kamba, the Soko, and the Chimpanzee, form a group of beings which is peculiarly situated geographically, and which is separated from all others by anatomical differences. Their home is in Equatorial Africa, from the Western Sea to the Great Lakes near the eastern side of the Continent, and none of the kinds composing it have ever been found out of this range. Their bones have not been found in caves or in the state of fossils anywhere, so they must be regarded as essentially African. The group clings to forest and jungle, and its members lead very much the same kind of lives, for they are all vegetarians, liking quietude, and either roaming singly or in pairs, or living in troops. There is no evidence whatever that any of these species of Troglodytes have ever wandered; and it must be admitted that they have lived where they are now found ever since the country has been as it is, as regards its physical geography and peculiar climate. As regards their anatomical distinctness from other beings, they may be separated from man on the one hand, and from the Monkeys, which form the subject of the next chapters, on the other. They are linked together as a group by many resemblances in their construction, although there are differences enough to distinguish kind from kind. From man they one and all differ in the shape of the head, the size of the brain case, the nature of the palate, the shape of the jaws, and in the last lower molar teeth and tooth-spaces. Their head-ridges, the shape and length of their limbs, and the nature of their thumbs and toe-thumbs are very distinctive. The great air-pouches, the shape of the chest, the extra ribs, and the shape of the hip-girdle, cause them to differ much from man; and their brain is, as it were, dwarfed and infantile.[13]
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (continued)—Genus Simia—THE ORANG-UTAN.
Origin of the Name—Description of the Orang—Rajah Brooke’s First Specimen—Mr. Wallace’s Experiences in Mias Hunting—The Home of the Mias—A Mias at Bay—Their Nests, Habits, Food, and Localities—Different kinds of Orangs—Structural Points—The Intelligence and Habits of the Young—The Brain and its Case—Resemblances and Differences of Old and Young
THE ORANG-UTAN.[14]
THE Malays call their chiefs Orangs, and the word relates to the intelligence of those called by it, meaning “a rational being.” They apply it also to their Elephants, and to the great Ape of Sumatra and Borneo. Utan, or as some spell it, Oetan (utang being wrong), means wild, or “of the woods;” and hence the conjoined words may be translated by what the natives really mean, “the wild man of the wood.” There are two kinds of Orang-utan, and both are, to a certain extent, man-like, the resemblance being greatest in the females and in the young, and diminishing as the males grow older.
All have long ruddy-brown hair, the tinge being decidedly red, a dark face, with small eyes, small nose, and great projecting jaws. The hair comes over the forehead and backwards over the neck; it is long on the limbs, and points downwards on the upper and upwards on the lower arm. It covers the back, and seat, and legs, standing out often, and gives a very wiry look to the fur. What strikes one directly on looking at a well-stuffed specimen of an old male, for instance, is the great length of the fore-limbs, which reach far towards the ankle, the length of the muzzle, and the extraordinary breadth of the face under the eyes, where the flatness resembles a mask more than a natural growth. In the females and young this growth of the cheek-bone and its covering of fat and skin are not seen; and it appears to be a mark of male beauty, as are also two sets of ridges on the skull, which greatly resemble those of the Gorilla.
Rajah Brooke, whose name will always be associated with Borneo, took great interest in Orang-utan hunting, principally with a view to decide how many kinds there were; and his first impressions on killing his first large one were excited by the prominent peculiarities just noticed. The first male he killed was seated lazily on a tree, and when the people approached he only took the trouble to hide behind the trunk, peeping first on one side and then on the other, and “dodging,” as the Rajah did the same. He was wounded in the wrist, and afterwards was despatched. The Rajah wrote to the Zoological Society of London as follows:—“Great was our triumph as we gazed on the huge animal dead at our feet, and proud were we of having shot the first Orang we had seen, and shot him in his native woods, in a Borneo forest hitherto untrodden by European feet. We were struck with the length of his arms, the enormous neck, the expanse of face, which altogether gave the impression of great height, whereas it was only great power. The hair was long, reddish, and thin; the face remarkably broad and fleshy, and on each side, in the place of a man’s whiskers, were the callosities, or rather fleshy protuberances, which I was so desirous to see, and which were nearly two inches in thickness. The ears were small and well shaped, the nose quite flat, the mouth prominent, the lips thick, the eyes small and roundish, the teeth large and discoloured, the face and hands black—these last being very powerful. This animal was four feet one inch in height, and its fore limb was three feet five inches and three-quarters in length; the width of the face, moreover, being as much as one foot one inch.”
“Whilst the fore limb was so long, the lower limb, from the hip to the heel, only measured one foot nine inches; and hence there is great disproportion between the limbs, the legs and feet appearing dwarfed in comparison.”