“The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, and whose territory forms its habitat, is the Mpongwe, occupying both banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles upward....

“If the word ‘Pongo’ be of African origin, it is probably a corruption of the word Mpongwe, the name of the tribe on the banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they inhabit.  Their local name for the Chimpanzee is Enche-eko, as near as it can be Anglicized, from which the common term ‘Jocko’ probably conies.  The Mpongwe apellation for its new congener is Enge-ena, prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and slightly sounding the second.

“The habitat of the Enge-ena is the interior of Lower Guinea, while that of the Enche-eko is nearer the seaboard.

“Its height is about five feet; it is disproportionately broad across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the Enche-eko; with age it becomes gray, which fact has given rise to the report that both animals are seen of different colors.

“Head.—­The prominent features of the head are the great width and elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, the branches of the lower jaw being very deep and extending far backward, and the comparative smallness of the cranial portion; the eyes are very large, and said to be like those of the Enche-eko, a bright hazel; nose broad and flat, slightly elevated toward the root; the muzzle broad, and prominent lips and chin, with scattered gray hairs; the under lip highly mobile, and capable of great elongation when the animal is enraged, then hanging over the chin; skin of the face and ears naked and of a dark-brown, approaching to black.

“The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorly with a transverse ridge of the same, but less prominent, running round from the back of one ear to the other.  The animal has the power of moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract it strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair forward, so as to present an indescribably ferocious aspect.

[Illustration:  THE GORILLA.]

“Neck short, thick, and hairy; chest and shoulders very broad, and said to be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos; arms very long, reaching some way below the knee—­the forearm much the shortest; hands very large, the thumbs much larger than the fingers....

“The gait is shuffling; the motion of the body, which is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side.  The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the body a half-jumping, half-swinging motion between them.  In this act it is said not to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand.  When it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms upward.