Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHIM­PANZEE--IM­PER­FECT NE­GRO, OR PER­FECT APE--THE HAR­MONIES OF NA­TURE--A HAND­FUL OF PAWS--A STONE SKIN--SEV­EN­TEEN THOU­SAND SPEC­TA­CLES ON ONE NOSE--AN­IMAL­CULÆ--PE­LION ON OS­SA--PTOLE­MY--COPER­NI­CUS TO GALILEO--META­PHYSICS AND COS­MOGO­NIES--ISA­IAH--A LIVE TIGER.

“The chim­panzé or chim­panzee,” says Buf­fon, the French nat­ural­ist, “is much more saga­cious than the _ourang out­ang_, with which it has been in­ac­cu­rate­ly con­found­ed; it like­wise bears a more marked re­sem­blance to the hu­man be­ing; the height is the same, and it has the same as­pect, mem­bers, and strength; it al­ways walks on two feet, with the head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a beard on its chin, a face that Grimal­di would have en­vied, hands and nails like those of men, whose man­ners and habits it is sus­cep­ti­ble of ac­quir­ing.”

Buf­fon knew an in­di­vid­ual of the species that sat de­mure­ly at ta­ble, tak­ing his place with the oth­er guests; like them he would spread out his nap­kin, and stick one cor­ner of it in­to his but­ton-​hole just as they did, and he was ex­ceed­ing­ly dex­ter­ous in the use of his knife, fork, and spoon. Spec­ta­tors were not a lit­tle sur­prised to see him go to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pock­et-​hand­ker­chief, place it side­ways on a pil­low, tuck him­self care­ful­ly in the bed-​clothes, pre­tend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and af­fect to un­der­go the pro­cess of be­ing bled.

The nat­ural­ist adds that he is very eas­ily taught, and may be made a use­ful do­mes­tic ser­vant, at least as re­gards the hum­bler op­er­ations of the kitchen; he prompt­ly obeys signs and the voice, whilst oth­er species of apes on­ly obey the stick; he will rinse glass­es, serve at ta­ble, turn the spit, grind cof­fee, or car­ry wa­ter. Add to his virtues as a do­mes­tic, that he is not much ad­dict­ed to chat­ter­ing about the fam­ily af­fairs, has no fol­low­ers, and is very ac­com­mo­dat­ing in the mat­ter of wages.

It was nei­ther more nor less than a chim­panzee that Fritz had caught in the dark at Fal­con's Nest.

“Now then, old fel­low,” said he, “you will help us to clear up this mys­te­ri­ous af­fair.”

The caged stranger made no re­ply to this ob­ser­va­tion; Willis and Jack then ques­tioned him, the one in En­glish and the oth­er in French.

Still no re­ply.

He did not sub­mit, how­ev­er, to be in­ter­ro­gat­ed qui­et­ly; on the con­trary, his strug­gles to get away were most vig­or­ous, so much so that Fritz adopt­ed the pre­cau­tion of bind­ing him.

“If it had been one of our sailors,” said Willis, “he would have rec­og­nized my voice long ago.”

“Who are you?” asked one.

“Where do you come from?” in­quired an­oth­er.

“Do not at­tempt to es­cape,” said a third.

“We mean you no harm; on the con­trary, we are friends, dis­posed to do you good if we can.”

“If all his broth­ers and sis­ters are as talkative as him­self,” re­marked Jack, “they must be a very amus­ing sort of peo­ple.”

“He can walk at all events,” said Fritz giv­ing him a smart push.

The chim­panzee fell flat on the floor.

“It ap­pears, sir, that you are de­ter­mined to have your own way, we must there­fore wait till day­light.”

An hour passed in poly­glot ex­pos­tu­la­tions with the stranger on the score of his ob­sti­na­cy, but all to no pur­pose; to use a pop­ular ex­pres­sion, he was as dumb as the Do­ges. He deigned, how­ev­er, to emp­ty at a sin­gle draught a cal­abash of Mala­ga that Willis gave him, but there his con­de­scen­sion stopped.

The Pi­lot, who now en­coun­tered mosquitoes in all di­rec­tions, made prepa­ra­tions for smok­ing; the light he struck, how­ev­er, in­stead of clear­ing up the mys­tery, on­ly per­plexed them more and more; there lay their new com­pan­ion, stretched on the ground, star­ing at them with a lu­di­crous grin.

If, on the one hand, it oc­curred to them this man was an an­imal, on the oth­er the an­imal was a man, and Buf­fon did not hap­pen to be there at the time to as­sign him of­fi­cial­ly a place in the for­mer king­dom.

The next dif­fi­cul­ty that pre­sent­ed it­self was, how they were to get him along; when they broke in the on­agra, they ran a prong through his ear; in re­duc­ing the buf­fa­lo to sub­jec­tion, they did not feel the slight­est com­punc­tion in thrust­ing a pin through the car­ti­lage of his nose; then, in or­der to give elas­tic­ity to the legs of the os­trich, they yoked him to two or three oth­er an­imals, and, will­ing or un­will­ing, he was com­pelled ul­ti­mate­ly to yield obe­di­ence to the lords of cre­ation. But whether the crea­ture be­fore them was a low­er or­der of ne­gro or a high­er or­der of ape, there was too great a re­sem­blance be­tween the cap­tured and the cap­tur­ers to ad­mit of any of these meth­ods of im­pul­sion be­ing adopt­ed. It was, there­fore, stretched on a plank, like a nabob in his palan­quin, that the chim­panzee made his first ap­pear­ance at Rock­house.

When the cav­al­cade ar­rived there, all the fam­ily, with the ex­cep­tion of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was to clothe the crea­ture they had cap­tured in a sailor's pan­taloons and jack­et, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the re­sult of this op­er­ation was, that he be­gan to as­sume a less fe­ro­cious as­pect, and be­have more re­spect­ful­ly to­wards his cap­tors. All the fam­ily had sat down to break­fast, when Fritz and Jack, tak­ing him by the hands, led him grave­ly in­to the gallery. A cord was at­tached to his legs, al­low­ing him to walk, but was so ar­ranged that he could not run.

On his ap­pear­ance the young girls fled at once; and, more ac­cus­tomed to draw­ing-​rooms than the rude re­al­ities of sav­age life, Mrs. Wol­ston's first im­pulse was to do the same.

“Good­ness gra­cious!” she cried with an air of alarm, “what hor­ror is that?”

“That, madam, is pre­cise­ly what we have been anx­ious for the last two or three hours to find out,” replied Fritz.

“Does the crea­ture speak?”

“Up till now, madam,” replied Willis, “he has on­ly opened his mouth to swal­low my cal­abash of Mala­ga; be­yond that, he has kept as close as a purs­er's lock­er.”

When the first shock had passed, and the com­pa­ny had re­gained their self-​pos­ses­sion, Jack re­lat­ed, with his cus­tom­ary orig­inal­ity, the in­ci­dents of the noc­tur­nal ex­pe­di­tion, of which Fritz was the orig­ina­tor, lead­er, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time, were made ac­quaint­ed with the doubts, fears, per­plex­ities, and battues, which, out of gal­lantry, they had hith­er­to been kept in ig­no­rance of. Beck­er then, hav­ing care­ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed the crea­ture, pro­nounced it to be (as we al­ready know) a full-​grown spec­imen of a kind of ape, called by the Africans “the wild man of the woods,” and by nat­ural­ists the _jocko_ or chim­panzee.

“It is nat­ural­ly very sav­age,” added Beck­er; “but this in­di­vid­ual seems al­ready to have re­ceived some de­gree of ed­uca­tion.”

As a proof of this, the chim­panzee seat­ed him­self amongst them very much at his ease; he scanned the faces sur­round­ing him with an air of cu­rios­ity, and seemed to search for a par­tic­ular coun­te­nance that it an­noyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were giv­en him put him in ex­cel­lent hu­mor.

“He has, with­out doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the coast,” said Wol­ston, “for I rec­ol­lect hav­ing read that his kin­dred are on­ly found in West­ern Africa and the ad­ja­cent is­lands; do you not rec­og­nize him, Willis, to be­long to the _Nel­son_, like the plank of the oth­er day?”

“No, sir.”

“So much the bet­ter.”

“We do not ship such cat­tle on board his Majesty's ships,” added the Pi­lot.

The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peep­ing in at the door, and, see­ing that no­body had been de­voured, took refuge by the side of their moth­er.

“Look here, fa­ther,” said Ernest, feel­ing the crea­ture's cra­nia, af­ter hav­ing face­tious­ly begged par­don for the lib­er­ty, “its head is pre­cise­ly like our own; that is very hu­mil­iat­ing.”

“Yes, my son, but his tongue and oth­er or­gans are al­so ex­act­ly like ours, yet he can­not ut­ter a word. His head is of the same form and pro­por­tion, but he does not for all that pos­sess hu­man in­tel­li­gence. Is this not a very strik­ing proof that mere mat­ter, though per­fect­ly or­ga­nized, nei­ther pro­duces words nor thought; and that it re­quires a spe­cial man­ifes­ta­tion of the Di­vine will to call these at­tributes in­to ex­is­tence?”

“True; but, fa­ther, some writ­ers say that apes have been ob­served to prof­it by fires light­ed in the for­est, and have gone and warmed them­selves when the trav­ellers left.”

“That, my son, is in­stinct, noth­ing more; the op­er­ation of keep­ing up a fire, by throw­ing a few branch­es up­on it, is ex­ceed­ing­ly sim­ple, but their in­stinct has nev­er been known to rise to that amount of in­tel­li­gence.”

“You rec­ol­lect, fa­ther, that heath­cock we saw some years ago dis­play­ing his glossy plumage to the daz­zled hens; is that not a well-​marked proof of co­quetry? and is not this co­quetry an in­di­ca­tion of some­thing more than mere in­stinct?”

“You will per­mit me to be­lieve, my son, at least till the con­trary has been proved, that these ac­tions to which you re­fer have noth­ing at all to do with co­quetry. Those bril­liant col­ors are de­signed for a pur­pose oth­er than that which you sup­pose; they serve as sig­nals to keep the com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er, or, in oth­er words, they are a com­mon cen­tre round which the hens may re­volve.”

“The tran­si­tion from apes to heath­cocks,” re­marked Jack, “ap­pears to me some­what abrupt.”

“Not so abrupt as you think, Mas­ter Jack,” said Wol­ston; “those who take the trou­ble to study Na­ture, ob­serve an ad­mirable gra­da­tion and easy pro­gres­sion from a sim­ple to a com­plex or­ga­ni­za­tion. There is no race or species that is not con­nect­ed by a per­cep­ti­ble link with that which pre­cedes and that which fol­lows.”

“What re­la­tion is there, for ex­am­ple,” in­quired Jack, “be­tween an oys­ter and a horse?”

“No im­me­di­ate re­la­tion cer­tain­ly, but there are in­ter­me­di­ate links by which the two are brought to­geth­er: they may be re­gard­ed, how­ev­er, as the op­po­site ex­tremes of the broth­er­hood--the two poles in the chain of ex­is­tence. A horse bears even less re­sem­blance to a turnip than to an oys­ter; a re­la­tion­ship may, nev­er­the­less, be traced, step by step, be­tween them, dis­sim­ilar as they are. There is the poly­pus, that sin­gu­lar prod­uct of Na­ture, which, re­gard­ed in one light, per­forms all the func­tions of an­imal life, whilst, when re­gard­ed in an­oth­er, it has the or­di­nary at­tributes of a plant; does this not clear­ly and dis­tinct­ly mark the tran­si­tion from the veg­etable to the an­imal king­dom? Again, cer­tain species of worms blend the an­imal with the in­sect tribe, those which are cov­ered with a horny sub­stance unite them with the crus­taceae. These ap­proach fish on the one hand, and rep­tiles on the oth­er, whilst rep­tiles in some species be­come mo­luscs.”

“And what is a mo­lusc?” in­quired Willis.

“The term _mo­lusc_ is ap­plied by nat­ural­ists to crea­tures which have no ver­te­brae, as for ex­am­ple, the cut­tle fish and the oys­ter.”

“I be­lieve _you_, Mr. Wol­ston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they would have told me that it was a com­modore or an ad­mi­ral.”

“Rep­tiles, I was go­ing to say, are con­nect­ed at one end of the chain with mo­luscs by the slug, and at the oth­er with fish by the eel. From fly­ing-​fish to birds the tran­si­tion is by no means abrupt. The os­trich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies, con­nects birds with quadrupeds; these again re­turn to fish through the cetacea.”

“Yes, but the in­ter­val be­tween such crea­tures and man is still great.”

“True; to con­nect the two would be a pro­cess re­plete with in­sur­mount­able dif­fi­cul­ties, and on­ly pos­si­ble to cre­ative pow­er. The pro­ject­ing snout would have to be flat­tened, and the fea­tures of hu­man­ity im­print­ed up­on it--that head bent up­on the ground would have to be di­rect­ed up­wards--that nar­row breast would have to be flat­tened out--those legs would have to be con­vert­ed in­to flex­ible arms, and those horny hoofs in­to nim­ble fin­gers.”

“To ac­com­plish which,” re­marked Frank, “God had on­ly to say, 'Let it be so.'”

“As­sured­ly; and as there is noth­ing in­con­gru­ous in Na­ture, as ev­ery­thing is ad­mirably adapt­ed for its pur­pose, as uni­ty of de­sign is per­cep­ti­ble in all things, as ev­ery ef­fect pro­ceeds from a cause, and be­comes a cause in its turn of suc­ceed­ing ef­fects, so God has willed that there should be a chain of re­sem­blance run­ning through all his works, and the link that con­nects man with the an­imal king­dom--the high­est type of the mam­mif­er­ous race, and the near­est ap­proach to hu­man­ity amongst the brutes--is the crea­ture be­fore you.”

As if to il­lus­trate this po­si­tion, and prove his ti­tle to the place award­ed him, the chim­panzee qui­et­ly laid hold of Mr. Wol­ston's straw hat and stuck it on his crispy head.

“He is, per­haps, afraid of catch­ing cold,” said Jack, thrust­ing a mat un­der his feet.

“Com­pare birds with quadrupeds,” con­tin­ued Mr. Wol­ston, “and you will find analo­gies at ev­ery step. Does the pow­er­ful and king­ly ea­gle not re­sem­ble the no­ble and gen­er­ous li­on?--the cru­el vul­ture, the fe­ro­cious tiger?--the kite, buz­zard, and crow prey­ing up­on car­rion, hye­nas, jack­als, and wolves? Are not fal­cons, hawks, and oth­er birds used in the chase, types of fox­es and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls about on­ly at night, not a type of the cat? The cor­morants and herons, that live up­on fish, are they not the ot­ters and beavers of the air? Do not pea­cocks, turkeys, and the com­mon barn-​door fowl bear a strik­ing affin­ity to ox­en, cows, sheep, and oth­er ru­mi­nat­ing an­imals?”

Dur­ing these re­marks, Jack's mon­key, Knips, had found its way in­to the gallery, and, ob­serv­ing the new­com­er, went for­ward to ac­cost him as if an old friend; the lat­ter, how­ev­er, ut­tered a men­ac­ing cry, and was about to seize Knips with ev­ident­ly no ami­able de­sign, but was pre­vent­ed by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped up­on the back of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tow­er of an im­preg­nable fortress, com­menced mak­ing a se­ries of gri­maces at the chim­panzee, these be­ing the on­ly mis­siles with­in reach that he could launch at his re­la­tion. The en­emy re­tort­ed, and kept up a smart fire of like am­mu­ni­tion.

“It ap­pears,” re­marked Mrs Wol­ston, “that apes are some­thing like men: the great and the lit­tle do not read­ily amal­ga­mate.”

“We must make them amal­ga­mate,” said Jack, tak­ing one of Knips's paws, whilst Ernest held that of the chim­panzee; thus they com­pelled them to shake hands, but with what de­gree of cor­dial­ity we are un­able to state.

“You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of feal­ty,” said Mrs. Wol­ston.

“Chim­panzee,” said Jack, speak­ing for Knips, “I promise al­ways to treat you in fu­ture with smiles, del­ica­cies, and re­spect.”

“Knips,” replied the wild man of the woods, through the or­gans of Ernest, “I promise to have for you on­ly the most gen­er­ous in­ten­tions; to share with you the nuts I may have oc­ca­sion to crack, that is, by giv­ing you the shells and keep­ing the ker­nel; I promise, more­over, not to im­mo­late you at the al­tar of my just rage, un­less it is im­pos­si­ble for me to avoid an out­burst of tem­per.”

“Now the em­brace of peace.”

“Ah, madam,” said Jack, “you must ex­cuse that cer­emo­ny, their friend­ship is too new for such in­ti­ma­cy, and Knips don't much like be­ing bit­ten.”

“Need we oth­er proofs,” re­marked Beck­er, when the scene be­tween the mon­keys was con­clud­ed, “that ev­ery­thing has been pre­med­itat­ed, weighed, and cal­cu­lat­ed? It was nec­es­sary for that most arid coun­try, Ara­bia, that we should have a sober an­imal, sus­cep­ti­ble of ex­ist­ing a long time with­out wa­ter, and ca­pa­ble of tread­ing the hot sands of the desert. God has ac­cord­ing­ly giv­en us the camel.”

“And the dromedary,” re­marked Ernest.

“So ev­ery­where,” con­tin­ued Beck­er; “and add to these ev­idences of Di­vine wis­dom the bril­liant col­ors, the silken furs, the gold­en plumage, and the ev­er-​vary­ing forms, yet, in all this di­ver­si­ty, there is uni­son--a har­mo­ny. Like the var­ious ob­jects which a clever artist in­tro­duces in­to his sketch, they are placed with­out uni­for­mi­ty, but still with ref­er­ence to their ef­fect up­on each oth­er, and so to the uni­ty of the gen­er­al de­sign.”

“There­fore,” re­marked Ernest, “we have an an­imal whose skin is of stone, which it throws off an­nu­al­ly to as­sume a new one--whose flesh is its tail and in its feet--whose hair is found in­side in its breast--whose stom­ach is in its head, which, like the skin, is re­newed ev­ery year, the first func­tion of the new be­ing to di­gest the old one.”

Here the Pi­lot man­ifest­ed some symp­toms of in­creduli­ty.

“That is not all, Willis,” con­tin­ued Ernest, “the an­imal of which I speak car­ries its eggs in the in­te­ri­or of its body till they are hatched, and then trans­fers them to its tail. It has peb­bles in its stom­ach, can throw off its limbs when they in­com­mode it, and re­place them with oth­ers more to its fan­cy. To fin­ish the por­trait, its eyes are placed at the tip of long flex­ible horns.”

“Do you re­al­ly mean me to be­lieve that yarn?” in­quired Willis.

“Yes, Willis, un­less you in­tend to de­ny the ex­is­tence of lob­sters.”

“Lob­sters! Ah! you are talk­ing of them, are you!”

“Have not,” con­tin­ued Ernest, “six thou­sand three hun­dred and six­ty-​two eyes been count­ed in one bee­tle? six­teen thou­sand in a fly? and as many as thir­ty-​four thou­sand six hun­dred in a but­ter­fly? Of course, facets un­der­stood.”

“Sup­pos­ing these facets my­ope or pres­byte,” ob­served Jack, “that gives sev­en­teen thou­sand three hun­dred and twen­ty-​five pairs of spec­ta­cles on one nose!”

“How won­der­ful­ly var­ied are the forms of Na­ture. If, from the mastodon and the fos­sil mam­moth, to which Buf­fon at­tributes five or six times the bulk and size of the ele­phant, we de­scend to those an­imal­cu­lae, of which Leuwen­hoek es­ti­mates that a thou­sand mil­lions of them would not oc­cu­py the place of an or­di­nary grain of sand.”

Here Willis lost all pa­tience and left the gallery, whistling as usu­al, un­der such cir­cum­stances, the “Mariner's March.”

“Male­sieu has de­tect­ed an­imals by the mi­cro­scope twen­ty-​sev­en times small­er than a mite. A sin­gle drop of wa­ter un­der this in­stru­ment as­sumes the as­pect of a lake, peo­pled by an in­fi­nite mul­ti­tude of liv­ing crea­tures.”

“There­fore,” ob­served Wol­ston, “it is not the great works of Na­ture, or those of which the or­ga­ni­za­tion is most per­fect, that alone presents to the mind of man the un­fath­omable mys­ter­ies of cre­ation; atoms be­come to him prob­lems, that ut­ter­ly de­fy the ut­most ef­forts of his in­tel­li­gence.”

“Which,” sug­gest­ed Beck­er, “does not pre­vent us be­liev­ing our­selves a well of sci­ence, nor hin­der us from pil­ing Pe­lion on Os­sa to scale the skies.”

“What be­comes, in the pres­ence of these facts, of the meta­physics and cos­mogo­nies that have suc­ceed­ed each oth­er for two thou­sand years? What of all the the­ories, from Ptole­my to Coper­ni­cus, from Coper­ni­cus to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leib­nitz and his mon­ads, Wolf and his fire forces, Mau­per­tu­is and his in­tel­li­gent el­ements, Brous­sais, who, in his anatom­ical lec­tures, has of­ten­er than once shown to his pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I say, be­comes of all these?”

“There is less wis­dom in such vain spec­ula­tion than in these sim­ple words: '_I be­lieve in God the Fa­ther, the Cre­ator of all things_.'”

“Worlds,” says Isa­iah, “are, be­fore Him, like the dew-​drops on a blade of grass.”

“We are now, how­ev­er, get­ting in­to the clouds,” re­marked Wol­ston; “let us re­turn to the earth by the short­est route. What do you mean to do with the chim­panzee?”

“Why, we must cage him in some way,” replied Beck­er; “to let him loose again would be to cre­ate fresh un­easi­ness for our­selves. To kill him would be al­most a kind of homi­cide.”

“Can I come in now?” in­quired Willis, thrust­ing his head in­to the gallery.

“Yes, with per­fect safe­ty.”

“You see, when Mas­ter Ernest be­gins to spin, he gets in­to the chap­ter of mir­acles, and for­gets that we have ears.”

“I can­not help see­ing them some­times though, Willis; when they are a lit­tle longer than usu­al, it is dif­fi­cult to hide them al­to­geth­er.”

“Well,” replied Willis, “I con­fess I am a bit of a fool, and as you are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over with me to Shark's Is­land: there will be a pair of us there then.”

“If you will un­der­take to be his guide and in­struc­tor, he is yours, Willis.”

“What shall I call him?”

“Jocko.”

“It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gen­tle­man of him in a month's time.”

“I should like,” said Frank, “if you could con­vert him in­to a tiger.”

“A tiger?”

“Yes, we want a foot­man in liv­ery to fetch Mrs. Wol­ston's car­riage next time she calls for it.”

“I feel high­ly flat­tered by the com­pli­ment,” said Mrs. Wol­ston, “but fear you will not be able to turn him out en­tire.”

“Why so, madam?”

“Where are the top boots to come from?”