as ours, without our
noble bony ridge, small ears, and exalted presence. They are actually
forced to walk erect, and their fore-legs seldom touch the ground,
except in the case of piccanninies. These little creatures crawl on the
ground, are much paler when born, and are then perfectly helpless; and
have no hair except on their heads, whereas our beautiful young are
fine and hairy, and can swing among the branches, shortly after birth,
nearly as well as their parents. When I was very young, I could soon
help myself to fruits which abound on our trees.

"Have you dates, plantains, and soursops--so sweet--at Sarawak, Master
Redhair? We have, and all kinds of them. I should like, for a variety,
to taste yours. Mind you send me some of the _durian_.[6] Make haste and
send it, for Wallace's description makes my mouth water.

"I have told you our little ones soon learn to help themselves, whereas
I have seen the piccaninnies of the blacks nursed by their mothers till
many rainy seasons had come and gone. I really think nothing of the
talking blacks who live near us. They put on bits of coloured rags, not
nearly so bright, so regular, nor so _contrasting_ as the feathers of
our birds.

"Beautifully coloured are the green touraco and the purple
plantain-eater, a rascally bird! who eats some of our finest plantains,
and has bitten holes in many a one I thought to get entirely to myself.
Why, our parrots beat these West-African negroes to sticks! Even our
common gray parrot, so prettily scaled with gray, and with the red
feathers under his tail, is more natural than these blacks, with their
dirty-white, yellow, blue, green, and red rags.

"Besides, that gray parrot beats them hollow both in its voice and in
the way it imitates. Do you know that when I have been giving my quick
short bark, to tell that I am not well pleased, I have heard one of
these fellows near me actually make me startle--its bark was so like to
that of one of our kind! I cannot bear the blacks! I have had a grudge
against them since some little urchins shot at me when I was young, and
made my hand bleed. How it bled! My mother, with whom I had been, kept
out of the way of these blackguards, but I was playing with another
little gorilla, and forgot to keep a look-out. I have kept a good
look-out ever since I got _that_ wound, I assure you. I licked it often,
and so did my mother with her delicious mouth. It soon left off bleeding
and healed. We gorillas hav