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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Not in years," he returned; "but old, very old in experience, and stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game. Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds "
The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the same time. "Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new vista of exquisite beauty "look at zat!" "Ay, it is a Siamang ape next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow.
Perhaps he was strained most of all, for upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept most of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the deck at night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty years of sea and hairy as an orang-utan.
He told me that thirty years ago, in the inland country west of Kotawaringin, he had seen a young Dayak whose chest, arms, and legs, and most of the face, were covered with hair very similar in colour to that of the orang-utan, though not so thick. The hair on his face was black, as usual. There were no Malays at that head, but many Dayaks.
Tiedemann first published an account of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandifort, Muller and Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera of the adult, and gave the earliest detailed and trustworthy history of the habits of the great Indian Ape in a state of nature; and as important additions have been made by later observers, we are at this moment better acquainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, than with that of any of the other greater man-like Apes.
Tweede Deel. Derde Druk. 1826. The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none exceeded 2 1/2 feet in length.
A Malay, the only hunter in Sampit, told me that some are so old that they can no longer climb trees. When wounded an orang-utan cries like a child in quite an uncanny manner, as a Dutch friend informed me. According to the Dayaks, it will wrest the spear from its attacker and use it on him.
A few remarks as to the orang-utan, or wild man of the woods, which, as I have said, is the largest wild beast found in Borneo, may not be here amiss, as this chapter is to be devoted to an expedition made by L. and myself in quest of these strange creatures. Lingga, in particular, is famed for the "Durian," a sort of bread-fruit, of which he is very fond.
These marks of the unimproved adult are present in all infants at birth. Lady Clara Vere de Vere's little bantling is in a sense not hers at all but the child of some ugly antique race; of a Palaeolithic mother, let us say, who lived before the last Glacial epoch and was not very much better- looking herself than an orang-utan.
Verkimier was in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling affectionately by his side for there was a strong mutual affection between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of game-bag on his shoulders. Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side.
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