Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-10-31
PEOPLE LIVING IN TREES.
MEN POSSESSED OF THE ATTzI
BuTEs OF E1oE2E rs.
A Journey TO the Svamps of LAOS in
Southern Asia-rhe Child WOn'
der. HraOs

der, Krao.
~ am prepared to swallow the whole
story, except the pouches in the mouth,
said gentleman, the other day, to whom
Professor George G. Shelly, the anthro
pologist and member of the geographic
cal society, was recounting the story oil
the capture Of hairy family, clearly hui
man, but bearing many strong resem.
blances to the anthropoid apes, which
we're secured by himself and the wei.
known explorer, Carl, aided by some ma.
tive soldiers, in the wilds of Laos, in the
year 1882.
There are" said the professor,
"three distinct races of men who live in
trees. These are Indians in South
America who inhabit the borders of the
Orinoco, Tucuya, and MADEIRA rivers; the
Veddas, of Ceylon, and the Krao-Mo,
neik, of Laos. a dependency of SIAM
Krao-Moneik means man monkey. Laos
is a part of the world which has never
been thoroughly explored, and but COM
paratively little is known about it by ge-
ographers and scientists. 1t contains
from eight hundred to one thousand
square miles, and lies between the fif-
teenth and twentieth degrees of north
latitude, north of Siam, east of the Me-
nam'Khong, west of AMMAN, and about
four hundred miles southwest Of Ton
quin. The reason why Laos has
not been thoroughly explored is because
almost every one who has attempted it
has died of malarial fever. That part OF
the country in which the Krao lives is
inhabited only by the men who live in
trees to escape the snakes and the wet
ground. They weave the branches to.
gether and build huts therein. In climb
ing the trees they use their toes as q
monkey does. They do not grasp the
trees with their legs, as we do. They do
not use fire. They live on dried fish,
wild rice, and the rind of green cocoa
nut. Their only weapon is club.
"Ten years ago Carl Book, the author
of The Man Hunters of Borneo' and
My Travels in Siam,' was travelling in
Asia on behalf of Mr.. Farini the Eng,
fish Barnum, to look for the tall people
which were said to live there. In the
court of the king of Burmah he saw and
talked with hairy family, which were
kept by the king for his amusement, as
European kings formerly kept fools and
dwarfs. Book tried in every way to Sc
cure them to take to Europe, but he
failed. He offered 800, 600 for one OF
them, but money is no object there they
have more of it than they know what to
do with. These people that Book saw
were the grandchildren of a hairy couple
which Crawford, who went to Burmah
in 1885 as English plenipotentiary, saw
there, and of which he published an ac-
count in his book, "A Mission to the
court of Ava Crawford said that these
people had been given to the king OF
Burmah by the king of Laos.
'Early in 1882 joined Carl Book at
Singapore. We went up the straits OF
Malacca and made an expedition into
Rumbo, in the Malay peninsula, where
it was reported that hairy race lived
called Jaccoons, but we did not find
them. We then went to Rangoon and
thence to Bangkok, the capital of Siam.
Book had once cured the prime minister
of Siam of malignant disorder. This
was the means of procuring us an escort,
twenty elephants and letters to the king
of Laos. After four months journey,
partly by land and partly by river, we
reached Kjang- Kjang, the capital of Laos.
"Our letters from the king of Siam
procured us the good Offices of the king
of Laos, who gave us guides, fresh ele-
plants, an escort of ten native soldiers,
armed with spears and bows and poisoned
arrows. After journey of several weeks
we came to the swamps where the hairy
people lived. But we had hard work to
catch them or even to see them. They
are wonderfully alert their scent is re-
markably keen, and they are very shy
and timid. We saw many of their huts
built up in the branches of trees before
we saw q person. At last we sur
prised and surrounded a family, a man,
wife and child, at their meal. We
made dash for them and captured
them. The parents made little re-
sistance, but the child fought,
scratched, and bit like monkey.
None of them were clothed in anything.
We took them to Kjang- Kjang, and
there the king refused to allow the
woman to go out of the country. He
had superstition that it would bring
him bad luck. She is kept in his court
and treated with high consideration.
She appeared to have little affection for
the child, and made no opposition to its
being taken from her. We started from
Bangkok with the father and the child.
At stopping place called Chieng- May
the whole party was attacked with
cholera. The hairy man captured and
three of the escort died. The rest re-
covered, though Mr.. Book came very
near dying. We landed in Europe with
the child October 4, 1892 The child is
the child now known as Krao. We
know by her teeth that she is eight
years old. She talks English and Ger
man, can read and write, and has devel-
oped the true feminine love of fine
clothes.
" She is modest, affectionate, playful
and easily managed. Every part of her
body is covered with hair except her
palms and soles. The hair on her fore
arm grows upward, that on her back
grows inward toward the spine and will
form sort of name, as her father
and mother had when she
grows older. Her forehead is covered
with thick black airabout three-eighths
of an inch long. The hair of her fore
head is entirely distinct from the hair on
her head. Her hands and feet, though
entirely human in shape, have the pre-
hensile qualities of monkeys hand.
She has thirteen dorsal vertebr@ and
thirteen pair of ribs, like the chimpan-
zee, while we have only twelve. And
she has pouches in her mouth in which
she carries nuts and other food like the
apes"
At this point the visitor made the re-
| mark which stands at the herinninr of