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The number of species of these animals, both in the Old and New Worlds, is so great, that to give a particular description of each would fill a large volume. It will be only possible in this sketch to point out the countries they inhabit, and to say a word or two of the more remarkable kinds. In point of precedence, the great Ourang-outang contests the palm with the Chimpanzee.
The 'mechanic corpuscular theory'; the consequent decay of philosophy, illustrated by such phrases as an excellent 'idea' of cooking; 'the ourang-outang theology of the origin of the human species substituted for the first ten chapters of the book of Genesis; rights of nature for the duties and privileges of citizens; idealess facts, misnamed proofs from history, for principles and the insight derived from them': all these and other calamitous results of modern philosophy are connected with a neglect of the well-being of the people, the mistaking of a large revenue for prosperity, and the consumption of gin by paupers to the 'value of eighteen millions yearly. He appeals pathetically to the leaders of the Utilitarians.
Much of the interior is covered by immense forests, inhabited by wild animals, and aboriginal tribes of human beings almost as wild. It is in Borneo that the largest of the monkey tribe, the ponga, equalling the human race in stature, is to be found; also the ourang-outang, or Simia Satyrus, which comes nearer to man in his looks, manners, and gait.
I will answer the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until this matter has blown over." At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs. "Be ready," said Dupin, "with your pistols, but neither use them nor show them until at a signal from myself."
The ourang-outang, that makes a nest of the boughs of trees, is said to construct a fresh one every night. The dwelling places of savages, often made of, or lined with, the skins of animals, with the dusty earth for a floor, harbour all kinds of insect vermin, and produce and perpetuate skin disease, due to the attacks of minute sarcopti.
Although fully appreciating the resemblances between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means overlooked the differences between the two, and he concludes his memoir by summing up first, the points in which "the Ourang-outang or Pygmie more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys do," under forty-seven distinct heads; and then giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the respects in which "the Ourang-outang or Pygmie differ'd from a Man and resembled more the Ape and Monkey kind."
As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering down it, hurried at once home dreading the consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang.
Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement about demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus: 'I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself why should I lose it through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp.
But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for their money, and I will now." Before one of them could move, the monstrous man had swung himself like some huge ourang-outang over the balustrade of the balcony.
Straight-backed, small-headed, big-barrelled oxen, as dissimilar from any wild species as can well be imagined, contended for attention and praise with sheep of half-a-dozen different breeds and styes of bloated preposterous pigs, no more like a wild boar or sow than a city alderman is like an ourang-outang.
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