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"I say, Mark," exclaimed Tom Ellis, after listening with breathless interest to one of these stories, "you're a regular book, you are, and I'd rather hear you tell stories than to read Captain Marryat or Paul du Chaillu." But there was one story Mark never would tell. It was that of his terrible experience in the buried river.
With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the 'nschiego mbouve', which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar note, resembling "Kooloo."
Now to say that a substance is a poison is not to say that it inevitably kills; it may be apparently innocuous, if not incidentally beneficial. King Mithridates, it is said, learned habitually to consume these dangerous commodities; and the scarcely less mythical Du Chaillu, after the fatigues of his gorilla warfare, found decided benefit from two ounces of arsenic.
With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the 'nschiego mbouve', which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar note, resembling "Kooloo."
It was bought, not only by students, but by a great number of general readers, there being enough adventure mixed up in the science to spice what otherwise might be rather dry reading. For instance, there is a chapter about killing orang-utans that must have served my old friend, Paul du Chaillu, as excellent raw stock in compiling his own recollections.
Savage, "Observations on the External Characters and Habits of the Troglodytes niger," Boston Journal Nat. Hist., 1843, pp. 362-376. The Troglodytes calvus, a relative of the preceding, inhabiting the same regions, as described by Du Chaillu, shows still more skill in raising his roof. A tree is always chosen for support.
Surely M. du Chaillu does grave injustice to this good old Briton, who was not a literary man, by declaring his stories to be mere travellers' tales, "untrue of any of the great apes of Africa."
From that moment those fishermen and I were great friends. They asked me my name. I replied, "My name is Paul Du Chaillu." "Why!" some of the younger fishermen said, "we have read in school the translation of your travels in Africa. Are you really he?" "Yes," I replied. Twenty-eight men, the crews of four boats, including the captains, lived together.
Professor Louis Agassiz headed the list; and others were Paul Du Chaillu, the African explorer whose adventures were for a long time regarded as clever romance; the Hon. Anson Burlingame, who had been an envoy from the Chinese Emperor; Sir Samuel Baker, of London; Rev. J.C. Fletcher, Professor Raphael Pumpelly, the Right Rev. Bishop Southgate, the Hon.
We have the counterpart of the fetish houses, containing the skulls of the ancestors and some idol or other, seen by Du Chaillu, in African towns, in the small huts constructed at the entrance of all the villages in Yucatan. These huts or shrines contain invariably a crucifix; at times the image of some saint, often a skull.
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