The gorilla is a fruit-eater, but as fierce as the most carnivorous animals. He is said to show an enraged enmity against men, probably because he has found them not only hostile to himself, but successful in securing the fruits which the gorilla loves, for he shows a similar hatred to the elephant, which also seeks these fruits. We are told that when the gorilla “sees the elephant busy with his trunk among the twigs, he instantly regards this as an infraction of the laws of property, and, dropping silently down to the bough, he suddenly brings his club smartly down on the sensitive finger of the elephant’s proboscis, and drives off the alarmed animal trumpeting shrilly with rage and pain.” His enmity to man is more terribly manifested. “The young athletic negroes in their ivory-haunts,” says Gosse, “well know the prowess of the gorilla. He does not, like the lion, sullenly retreat on seeing them, but swings himself rapidly down to the lower branches, courting the conflict, and clutches the nearest of his enemies. The hideous aspect of his visage (his green eyes flashing with rage) is heightened by the thick and prominent brows being drawn spasmodically up and down, with the hair erect, causing a horrible and fiendish scowl. Weapons are torn from their possessor’s grasp, gun-barrels bent and crushed in by the powerful hands and vice-like teeth of the enraged brute. More horrid still, however, is the sudden and unexpected fate which is often inflicted by him. Two negroes will be walking through one of the woodland paths unsuspicious of evil, when in an instant one misses his companion, or turns to see him drawn up in the air with a convulsed choking cry, and in a few minutes dropped to the ground, a strangled corpse. The terrified survivor gazes up, and meets the grin and glare of the fiendish giant, who, watching his opportunity, had suddenly put down his immense hind hand, caught the wretch by the neck with resistless power, and dropped him only when he ceased to struggle.”
The chimpanzee inhabits the region from Sierra Leone to the southern confines of Angola, possibly as far as Cape Negro, so that his domain includes within it that of the gorilla. He attains almost the same height as the gorilla when full grown, but is far less powerfully built. In fact, in general proportions the chimpanzee approaches man more nearly than does any other animal. His body is covered with long black coarse hair, thickest on the head, shoulders, and back, and rather thin on the breast and belly. The face is dark brown and naked, as are the ears, except that long black whiskers adorn the animal’s cheeks. The hair on the forearms is directed towards the elbows, as is the case with all the anthropoid apes, and with man himself. This hair forms, where it meets the hair from the upper arm, a small ruff about the elbow joint. The chimpanzees live in society in the woods, constructing huts from the branches and foliage of trees to protect themselves against the sun and heavy rains. It is said by some travellers that the chimpanzee walks upright in its native woods, but this is doubtful; though certainly the formation of the toes better fits them to stand upright than either the gorilla or the orang. They arm themselves with clubs, and unite to defend themselves against the attacks of wild beasts, “compelling,” it is said, “even the elephant himself to abandon the districts in which they reside.” We learn that “it is dangerous for men to enter their forests, unless in companies and well armed; women in particular are often said to be carried away by these animals, and one negress is reported to have lived among them for the space of three years, during which time they treated her with uniform kindness, but always prevented any attempt on her part to escape. When the negroes leave a fire in the woods, it is said that the chimpanzees will gather round and warm themselves at the blaze, but they have not sufficient intelligence to keep it alive by fresh supplies of fuel.”