Mr. It means losing oneself in a mass of disagreeable, hard, mechanical details, and trying to influence many dull or careless, or bigoted people for the sake of ends that were at first of doubtful brilliancy, and are continually being dimmed and dwarfed by the clouds of conflict. Is this the kind of thing to which human nature is desperately prone, and into which it is continually rushing with perilous avidity? Arnold may say that he does not discourage action, but only asks for delay, in order that we may act with sufficient knowledge. This is the eternal excuse of indolence-insufficient knowledge; still, taken cautiously, the warning is valuable, and we may thank Mr. Arnold for it; we cannot be too much stimulated to study the laws of the social phenomena that we wish to modify, in order that "reason the card" may be as complete and accurate as possible. But we remember that we have heard all this before, at much length, from a very different sort of prophet. It has been preached to us by a school, small, but energetic (energetic to a degree that causes Mr. Arnold to scream "Jacobinism!"); and the preaching has been not in the name of culture, but in the name of religion and self-sacrifice. I do not ask much sympathy for the people of action from the people of culture; I will show by an example how much. Paley, somewhere in one of his optimistic expositions of the comfortableness of things, remarks, that if he is ever inclined to grumble at his taxes, when he gets his newspaper he feels repaid; he feels that he could not lay out the money better than in purchasing the spectacle of all this varied life and bustle. There are more taxes now, but there are more and bigger newspapers; let us hope that Paley would still consider the account balanced. Now, might not Mr. Arnold imbibe a little of this pleasant spirit? As it is, no one who is doing anything can feel that Mr. Arnold hearing of it is the least bit more content to pay his taxes-that is, unless he is doing it in some supremely graceful and harmonious way. One cannot think on this subject without recalling the great man who recommended to philosophy a position very similar to that now claimed for culture. I wish to give Mr. Arnold the full benefit of his resemblance to Plato. But when we look closer at the two positions, the dissimilarity comes out; they have a very different effect on our feelings and imagination; and I confess I feel more sympathy with the melancholy philosopher looking out with hopeless placidity "from beneath the shelter of some wall" on the storms and dust-clouds of blind and selfish conflict, than with a cheerful modern liberal, tempered by renouncement, shuddering aloof from the rank exhalations of vulgar enthusiasm, and holding up the pouncetbox of culture betwixt the wind and his nobility. To prolong this fault-finding would be neither pleasant nor profitable. But perhaps many who love culture muchand respect the enthusiasm of those who love it more-may be sorry when it is brought into antagonism with things that are more dear to them even than culture. I think Mr. Arnold wishes for the reconciliation of antagonisms: I think that in many respects, with his subtle eloquence, his breadth of view, and above all, his admirable temper, he is excellently fitted to reconcile antago nisms; and, therefore, I am vexed when I find him in an access of dilettante humor, doing not a little to exasperate and exacerbate them, and dropping from the prophet of an ideal culture into a more or less prejudiced advocate of the actual. Belgravia. THE GORILLA AS I FOUND HIM. BY W. WINWOOD READE, F. R. G. S. IN 1861 M. Du Chaillu introduced a new ape to the public, who with proverbial fickleness immediately discarded the orang-outang. A name gathered out of the log-book of a Carthaginian naval officer became established in the English language as a choice expression of abuse; and a few months after the publication of M. Du Chaillu's book, a young lady, brought up before a London police-court for beating her little brother, tried to justify herself by saying that he had called her a gorilla. This ape, occasionally mentioned by old African voyagers, perhaps seen by Hanno, the oldest of them all, had been discovered for purposes of science by some American missionaries in the Gaboon in 1846. It was first described and named by Professor Wyman, of Harvard, in 1847, and shortly afterwards by Professor Owen. But M. Du Chaillu gave a direct impulse to that line of research by bringing from Africa a larger number of specimens than had ever been collected before; and perhaps an indirect impulse by awakening that public curiosity which frequently influences scientific work. Everybody must have noticed how the ape question has culminated during the last five years. This is partly owing, perhaps, to the popularity of the gorilla. M. Du Chaillu also entitled to the credit of having drawn the attention of men of science to the coast-region of Western Equatorial Africa; an extraordinary country, which had been passed over by previous explorers as it had been passed over by the Portuguese settlers of the sixteenth century. This region has been justly called by Sir Roderick Murchison, Du Chaillu's Country; and its discoverer, whatever his faults may be, won for himself a place in the history of Africa, which he has lately confirmed by a gallant and genuine journey of explora tion. me was clear and reliable, but it was insufficient. I was therefore obliged to visit other and less accessible parts of the gorilla country to gain the desired information. The Fan country was my Escurial, the Fernand Vaz my Hague, the natives were my MSS. It required skill to read them, but, living among them, I soon acquired that skill; and I did not leave them until I had perfectly satisfied my curiosity. Had I been employed by others to pursue an inquiry which was attended with many hardships, it might be supposed that I should be likely to hurry over it. But I went out of my own ac cord; at that time I was scarcely acquainted with a single scientific man; I had never seen M. Du Chaillu; I had taken no part in the gorilla controversy; I had not even formed a definite opinion of my own upon the matter. I was consequently thoroughly unbiassed; I was also unshackled-my time was my own; and I soon began to enjoy the kind of life which I was obliged to lead. I may add that, although I was very young at the time, I fully appreciated the importance of the task which I had set myself to do. Therefore, although I remained only a few months in the gorilla country, I remained there long enough to exhaust the question; and when I left that country, it was not to hurry back to England, but to spend ten months more in other parts of Western Africa. Soon after his Adventures in Equatorial Africa appeared, his veracity was called in question by a high authority, and a long controversy ensued, from which it was evident that all parties concerned (however great their scientific attainments might be) were fighting completely in the dark. I saw but one way in which the question could be settled, and determined to go to the gorilla country to investigate it there. Imagine be brought out, filled with statements history of Europe were to of a novel and startling kind. A thor Du Chaillu pointed them out for me; and ough critic would at once refer to the if I bring forward any new facts it will original authorities, and perhaps, begin- be those only which he passed over State-paper Office, would find himself his purpose to suppress. The historical critic, on finding him self in a new world of manuscript, would be naturally inclined to make original investigations of his own; and something of this kind I did in the gorilla country. But let it be understood by the reader that on the present occasion I appear before him in the simple capacity of critic. I examined at the risk of my life rare and difficult documents; but M. that a new gradually led on to the archives of the Escurial and the Hague. In the same under dispute: 1. Was M. Du Chaillu's the Gaboon would be sufficient for my "on foot, and unaccompanied by other thanner I supposed at first that a trip to map correct? 2. Had he really travelled, purpose. There I consulted the Amer- white men, 8,000 miles?" 3. Were the ican missionaries; they were my printed strings of a native harp made of a vegbooks; the information which they gave etable fibre? 4. Were the Fans canni bals? 5. Were wild elephants driven into an enclosure somewhat after the Asiatic method? 6. Did the shiego mbouvé, or bald-headed chimpanzee, build an umbrella-shaped nest, and sit under it when it rained? 7. Was the young gorilla when captured ferocious and untamable? 8. Had M. Du Chaillu ever killed a gorilla? 9. Had a gorilla killed a hunter belonging to his party? 10. Had he correctly described the habits of that ape, especially as to its method of attack in the erect posture, and its practice of beating its breast like a drum when enraged? Starting from Liverpool, December 24, 1861, and arriving in Gaboon early in the following February, I went at once to the house of the Rev. William Walker, an American missionary, who had lived in the gorilla country about twenty years. Now, when M. Du Chaillu had been first attacked, he announced that he had wnitten to his missionary friends, Mr. Walker of Gaboon, and Mr. Mackey of Corisco; and that they would soon write to clear him from the unjust charges which had been made against him. They did write; but M. Du Chaillu did not venture to produce their letters. Both Mr. Walker and Mr. Mackey, whom I saw shortly after, told me that, although upon some grounds M. Du Chaillu had been ignorantly and unjustly attacked, yet they could not conscientiously assert that his book was true. This, indeed, might have been inferred from their apparent silence. They spoke warmly of M. Du Chaillu's personal qualities; it was under Mr. Mackey's wing that he had made his first journey to the Fans, and Mr. Mackey, a veteran at that kind of thing, said that he showed great power of endurance. Both of his friends deeply regretted that he had written such a book. But neither of them could tell me what he had done in the Fernand Vaz; whether he had killed gorillas there or not. Mr. Walker thought that he had killed one; so did Mr. Mackey; so did Captain Burton, who spent a fortnight in the Gaboon country while I was in the Muni; so did I. But it must be understood that our conclusions were mere conjectures; we had no means of know ing anything about the matter. We knew only that gorillas, which are not very common in the Gaboon, and which are exceedingly rare in the Muni, are more plentiful in the Fernand Vaz; that M. Du Chaillu had traded on that river a long time; that in fact there was no good reason why he should not have killed a gorilla; and so we thought that he had. As for his description of the gorilla's ferocity, that is another matter altogether, which will be discussed at length in a subsequent portion of this article. At one time I thought that I should have been obliged to leave the gorilla country without being able to complete my investigations. The Fernand Vaz river was 110 miles south from the Gaboon, and could not be reached overland on account of the delta of the Ogobai. By the time that I had satisfied myself about the Fans and the elephants, by journeys into the interior via the Muni and the Gaboon, it was the dry season, during which winds blow continuously from the south; I had only a canoe, and canoes cannot be sailed against the wind. But, by a piece of good fortune, a Captain Johnson just then appeared in the Gaboon, bound for the Fernand Vaz. He was sent there by an American firm to take the place of the deceased factor, Captain Lawlin. He gave me a seat in his long-boat, and starting on May 28, we coasted four days, then entered the delta of the Ogobai, and paddled through swamps, till on the sixth day we emerged into a beautiful river, with hippopotami raising their brown heads in all directions, and green prairies skirting the water's edge. Down to the beach poured men and women, crazy with delight at the prospect of trade, and shouting, "Lawli's son! Lawli's son!" for there had been no white man on the river since M. Du Chaillu had left it and Lawlin had died. We passed a strip of white sand on the left bank, which was pointed out to me as the site of M. Du Chaillu's factory, and soon ar rived at Lawlin's, which stood on a small island about twenty miles from the mouth of the river. He had received it as a gift from the natives, and called it Brooklyn. As soon as I arrived I sent for a native who could speak English; made arrangements with him for hiring a canoe and a crew, and for starting up two classes of white men, traders and river the next morning. missionaries, and believe that we live in a small island, and are all of us related to one another. When I told her what I had come for, she said that as soon as Captain Lawlin had heard of M. Du Chaillu's book, he had gone up the river, and made inquiries of the native hunters, and had found out that it was not true that he had shot gorillas; he had only shot little birds. The reader of M. Du Chaillu's book may remember that, with the exception of the one gorilla encountered in the Muni, all his remarkable adventures had occurred in the neighborhood of a town called Goumbi, capital of the Rembo, or upper Fernand Vaz, and ruled over by King Quenqueza. It was there that he had shot his gorillas; there that he had found his unfortunate hunter weltering in blood; there that he had listened to the plaintive cry of the Kooloo-kamba (koola-kooloo-koola-kooloo) ;* there that he had seen the bald-headed chimpanzee sitting under its umbrella-shaped nest. To Goumbi, therefore, I determined to go without a moment's delay. But in the course of our first day's Voyage we were met by some people who told us that Quenqueza was on a visit to a town close by. I landed at this town, shook hands with the monarch before an admiring crowd, dined with him, and, after having conversed with him for a long time on the spurious object of my visit (a desire to trade), ventured to touch upon the real one. His answer was concise. He and Paulo (as he called M. Du Chaillu) had been in the habit of shooting gorillas together in the bush. This, I thought, completely settled the matter; but at another town, where we stopped the next morning (Quenqueza going with me), I was introduced to a lady named Mary. She was the wife of the chieftain who had given Brooklyn to Captain Lawlin. She had been educated by the missionaries of the Gaboon, and spoke English remarkably well. She had served as interpreter to Captain Lawlin; had a very beautiful and intelligent face; had no African empressement in her manner; and spoke slowly and thoughtfully, as if she was conscious of the gravity of words. In the course of conversation she asked me whether I had really visited the river with the intention of setting up a factory. I replied that I had made use of that pretext to facilitate travelling, and to avoid the necessity of preaching sermons. The natives recognize only *The Kooloo-kamba is a new variety of the chimpanzee, which M. Du Chaillu discovered; but it utters no such sound as the above. "But here is Quenqueza," said I, "who says that he and M. Du Chailln shot gorillas together." "Ah, sir," she said, "you must not believe all these people tell you; they do not speak the truth." Then she turned to Quenqueza, who was present, and spoke to him in a stern voice; upon which he hung down his head, and mumbled out something between his teeth. "What does he say?" I asked. "He says that Paulo and he went a long way into the bush," said one of my interpreters. "Quenqueza!" said I. He looked up. "Paulo ngina?" Here I imitated the act of shooting. Quenqueza shook his head, and said, "Nyawhi" (no). I was not quite satisfied with this, and determined to examine the hunters of Goumbi with great care. I had two interpreters, Oshupu, a Gaboon man, and Mafuk, a Fernand-Vaz man; the dialect spoken in the two rivers being the same. I contrived to sow ill-will between them to prevent collusion; and on arriving at Goumbi (June 6th) I called the hunters of the town together, and told them that I wanted to go into the bush to shoot ngina (the gorilla). Upon this there were many cries of Heigh! heigh!" and raising up of hands. Who ever heard of a white man going to shoot ngina? Why wouldn't I do as Paulo did? They, the hunters, would go into the bush and kill nginas and bring them to me, for which I would pay them liberally in cloth, powder, and tobacco. I said I would give them all that, if they would show me nginas in the bush. But they shook their heads and looked discontented. Why couldn't I do as Paulo did? was the eternal refrain; for savages, like lawyers, are the slaves of precedent. The end of M. Du Chaillu's route was four days distant from Goumbi. This was the great journey which had "thrown a new light upon the physical structure of Equatorial Africa." I found at Goumbi the five men who had accompanied him to his ultima Thule, examined them each in private and each twice-once by the Gaboon, once by the Fernand-Vaz interpreter. They all told the same story-"Paulo was a fine man; he walked the bush well." "When he was on the journey," I asked, "and while he was living at the town, what did he shoot?" He shot squirrels, birds, and small monkeys." M. Du Chaillu mentions especially one man, Etia, a noted gorilla-hunter, in whose company he pretended to have shot gorillas. This man gave the same evidence. I remained about nine days at Goumbi, to investigate other matters of interest; and will now sum up the points stated at the commencement of this article. 1. With respect to the correctness of M. Du Chaillu's map I cannot pretend to say much, as I took no instruments with me. But his journeys are without geographical importance. 2. His statement that he travelled on foot eight thousand miles is monstrous. The journeys which he did make were exceedingly creditable in a young and illiterate trader, but they cannot be dignified with the name of explorations. In a few months I covered almost as much ground as he had covered in several years, and I call myself a tourist. M. Du Chaillu, I do not doubt, had the desire to explore, but he had not the means. Africa is the most expensive of all countries to travel in. 3. The harp-string question, as is well known, is decided in his favor. 4. And the Fans are cannibals; at least such is the belief of the missionaries who have resided among them, of the native tribes who surround them, of Mr. Mackey, Captain Burton, and myself, who bave visited them. The opinions of people who live in London cannot be received upon this question, and M. Du Chaillu is therefore borne out in his statement. But with respect to the "dreadful signs of cannibalism," of which he speaks so much, nobody has been for tunate enough to see them except himself. 5. Wild elephants are enclosed in Equatorial Africa. I have been an eye witness of that fact; but M. Du Chaillu's description of the enclosure is erroneous and confused. If he saw anything of the kind, he observed badly. seum, 6. The umbrella-shaped nest is a myth. All the anthropoid apes in Africa build nests, which they sit on, not under. I have seen the nests both of the gorilla and the chimpanzee in the neighborhood of Goumbi. M. Du Chaillu lately sent two chimpanzee nests to the British Muand says in his recent work, "they were somewhat different in form from those I found in my former journey." I should think they were. No such nests as those figured in his first work are to be found in Equatorial Africa, or any other country under the sun. M. Du Chaillu does not appear to have discov ered the real use of these nests, and even now seems to suppose that they are made to answer the purpose of umbrellas. They are really beds for lying-in. The African apes, though to some extent terrestrial in their habits, belong to the trees, and it can easily be understood that the female cannot be conveniently confined upon a branch. When she is pregnant, therefore, the male builds this rude layer of sticks and boughs, which is deserted after parturition. 7. The only young gorilla which I saw in a state of captivity was not at all fe rocious. M. Du Chaillu must therefore allow that there are some exceptions to what may very possibly be a rule. Much depends, I should imagine, upon the age of the gorilla. The one that I saw was very young. 8. The evidence relating to this ques tion has been already detailed. As for the gorilla in the Muni, Mr. Mackey as certained beyoud a doubt that M. Du Chaillu, a collector of skins, brought no gorilla skin back from the interior, which proves that he did not even purchase one during that journey. When, on the basis of all that evidence, I denied that M. Du Chaillu had killed a gorilla, he offered to bet Dr. Gray a thousand pounds that he would kill one. That showed a very noble spirit, but was scarcely to the point. I did not say could not kill a gorilla, but that he had not killed one. he 9. As for the poor hunter who was killed by a gorilla, it is an admirably |