My William was at this time about eleven months old, but was still at the breast, as I could never prevail on his lovely mother to wean him, and at the very time of which I am speaking, our little settlement was invaded one night by a tribe of those large baboons called ourang-outangs, pongos, or wild men of the woods, who did great mischief to our fruits, yams, and carrots.  From that time we kept a great number of guns loaded, and set a watch; and at length the depredators were again discovered.  We pursued them as far as the Keys river, which they swam, and we lost them.

Among all the depredators, there was none fell but one youngling, which I lifted in my arms, when it looked so pitifully, and cried so like a child, that my heart bled for it.  A large monster, more than six feet high, perceiving that he had lost his cub, returned brandishing a huge club, and grinning at me.  I wanted to restore the abominable brat, for I could not bear the thought of killing it, it was so like a human creature; but before I could do this, several shots had been fired by my companions at the hideous monster, which caused him once more to take to his heels, but turning oft as he fled, he made threatening gestures at me.  A Kousi servant that we had, finished the cub, and I caused it to be buried.

The very morning after that but one, Agnes and her black maid were milking our few cows upon the green:  I was in the garden, and William was toddling about pulling flowers, when, all at once, the women were alarmed by the sight of a tremendous ourang-outang issuing from our house, which they had just left.  They seemed to have been struck dumb and senseless with amazement, for not one of them uttered a sound, until the monster, springing forward, in one moment, snatched up the child and made off with him.  Before I reached the green where the cows stood, the ourang-outang was fully half a mile gone, and only the poor, feeble exhausted women running screaming after him.  Before I overtook the women, I heard the agonized cries of my dear boy, my darling William, in the paws of that horrible monster.  I pursued, breathless and altogether unnerved with agony; but, alas!  I rather lost than gained ground.

These animals have this peculiarity, that when they are walking leisurely or running down-hill, they walk upright like a human being; but when hard pressed on level ground, or up hill, they use their long arms as fore-legs, and then run with inconceivable swiftness.  When flying with their own young, the greater part of them will run nearly twice as fast as an ordinary man, for the cubs cling to them with both feet and hands, but as my poor William shrunk from the monster’s touch, he was obliged to embrace him closely with one paw, and run on three, and still in that manner he outran me.  Keeping still his distance before me, he reached the Keys river, and there the last gleam of hope closed on me, for I could not swim while the ourang-outang, with much acuteness, threw the child