The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-22 00:00:00

UST.

ADTENTURES ANON( THE GORILLAS.

At a special meeting of the members of the Royal
Institution on Monday, M. du Chaillu narrated his
adventures in the equatorial region of Western
Africa, where the monster ape, the gorilla-, has its
habitation. M. du Chaillu, who is an American
citizen, though a Frenchman by birth, is a natura-
list ; and was ' seized with a desire to hunt the
gorilla in its native forests. He first landed about
three degrees north of the equator, and passed some
time among the negro tribes who occupy the tracts
of country extending thence to the equator, where
the chimpanze is found. He described in an ani-
mated manner, his life among those savages—by
some he was regarded as a king, whilst among
another tribe who are cannibals he was in daily
fear of their longing to taste white flesh. He
gave an interesting account of some hut-building
chimpanzees, which tie the leaves of trees together
to form a roof to protect them from the rain, and
reside on the branches under cover, One of the
young of these creatures he tamed, and it lived with
him in his tent five months, exhibiting many signs
of intelligence. Having escaped from the cannibals,
M. du Chaillu crossed the equatorial line and pene-
trated into the interior, where, among wild forests
and luxuriant tropical vegetation, the gorilla roams.
The full-grown animal is very formidable. It stands
nearly as high as a man, and its body is as large as
that of a giant. Its head is most ferocious•look-
ing, having large projecting jaws and teeth like
tusks, and its arms are long and extremely muscu-
lar. Were the legs of the gorilla proportioned in
size to its body, it would be at least seven feet
high when erect. A deadly feud subsists between
these creatures and the negroes, who have strange
superstitions respecting them. The first time
M. du Chaillu encountered one he saw it coming
towards him in a menacing manner, making a roar-
ing noise and beating its hands against its breast.
He allowed it to approach within a few yards, and
then shot it dead. On another occasion he saw a
negro who had been mortally wounded by a large
gorilla, which M. du Chaillu afterwards shot, but
the negroes would not believe it was the same one,
for they have a belief that when a man is killed by a
gorilla he immediately becomes a gorilla himself, and
cannot be killed, Though the gorilla has a greater
aptitude for standing erect than any other of the
monkey tribe, it does not walk steadily in that
position, and a thick horny substance on its hands
indicates that it is accustomed to use its hands in
locomotion. The roar of the gorillas in the forests
may be heard at a great distance ; and the sound
they make as they approach, added to their ferocious
appearance, is most appalling. M. du Chaillu
hunted these creatures with great activity, and
in the course of his adventures among them he
killed no fewer than 21. Two of these were exhi-
bited in the lecture-room, in the attitudes in which
they approach their enemies. The body of one was
stated by Professor Owen, on a previous occasion,
when they were shown at the Royal Geographical
Society, to be equal in size to that of the Irish
giant, whose skeleton is now in the museum of the
College of Surgeons, and who was upwards of eight
feet in height. M. du Chaillu captured a young
gorilla alive, but it was so wild that it ,could not
be tamed. In his African researches he-penetrated
600 miles into the interior, along a chain of moun-
tains covered with trees, where rain was very
abundant, though within two or three degrees of
the equator.
There was suspended in the lecture room draw-
ings of the skeletons of man and of the gorilla,
contributed by Professor Owen; and yesterday
afternoon, at the conclusion of his lecture on fossil
fishes, the professor pointed out on the drawings
which still remained there, the characteristic dif-
ferences between the anatomy of man and of the
gorilla. The immense chest with an additional
pair of ribs, the long and strong bones of the arm,
the form of the skull, and the large size of the jaws,
presented a striking contrast to the well-propor-
tioned skeleton of man ; but in the form of the great
toe and in the comparative size and form of the skull
the most distinctive differences are observed. In
the foot of the gorilla the great toe is a thumb,
placed nearly at right angles to the other toes ;
and the brain, as contrasted with that of a negro,
presented an immense difference. The cerebellum,
from which the nerves of sensation emanate, is
large in the gorilla, and the cerebral hemispheres
are small, whilst in man that portion of the brain
which is the organ of the intellectual faculties is very
large, and not only covers but laps over the cere-
bellum. Professor Owen said that the brain of
the gorilla is well developed as compared with the
brain of animals inferior to it. but there is a
gradually descending scale of inferiority. There
is, indeed, a greater difference between the brain
of a gorilla and of some of the lo west orders of
animals than there is between the negro and the
gorilla, yet the difference in the former case is
gradual, whilst between man and the gorilla there
is a large hiatus that is not bridged over by any
connecting links.