Apes


Sluper, who could soar to the height of delineating a Cyclops, is equal

to the occasion when he has to deal with Apes, and here he gives us an

Ape which, unfortunately, does not seem to have survived to modern

times--namely, one which wove for itself coarse cloth, probably of

rushes; had a cloak of skin, and walked upright, with the aid of a

walking-stick, and was so genteel, that, having no boots, he seems to

have bla
ked his feet. And thus he sings of it:



"Pres le Peru par effect le voit on,

Dieu a donne au Singe telle forme.

Vestu dejonc, s'appuyant d'un baston,

Estat debout, chose aux homes coforme."






Before quitting the subject of Apes, I cannot refrain from noticing

another of this genus mentioned by Topsell, and that is the

Arctopithecus or Bear Ape:--"There is in America a very deformed beast,

which the inhabitants call Haut or Hauti, and the Frenchmen

Guenon, as big as a great Affrican Monkey. His belly hangeth very low,

his head and face like unto a childes, and being taken, it will sigh

like a young childe. His skin is of an ashe-colour, and hairie like a

Beare: he hath but three clawes on a foote, as longe as foure fingers,

and like the thornes of Privet, whereby he climbeth up into the highest

trees, and for the most part liveth of the leaves of a certain tree,

beeing of an exceeding heighth, which the Americans call Amahut, and

thereof this beast is called Haut. Their tayle is about three fingers

long, having very little haire thereon; it hath beene often tried, that

though it suffer any famine, it will not eate the fleshe of a living

man, and one of them was given me by a French-man, which I kept alive

sixe and twenty daies, and at the last it was killed by Dogges, and in

that time when I had set it abroad in the open ayre, I observed that,

although it often rained, yet was that beast never wet.[28] When it is

tame, it is very loving to a man, and desirous to climbe uppe to his

shoulders, which those naked Amerycans cannot endure, by reason of the

sharpnesse of his Clawes."



More

;