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when Gambo and I heard a gun fired but a
little way from us, and presently another.
We were already on our way to the spot
where we hoped to see a gorilla slain, when
terrific roars.
the forest began to resound with the most
Gambo seized my arms in
great agitation, and we hurried on, both
filled with a dreadful and sickening alarm.
We had not gone far when our worst fears
were realized. The poor brave fellow who
had gone off alone was ying on the ground
first, quite dead. His bowels were protrud-
in a pool of his own blood, and I thought, at
ing through the lacerated abdomen. Beside
him lay his gun. The stock was broken,
and the barrel was bent and flattened. It
bore plainly the marks of the gorilla's teeth.

"We picked him up, and I dressed his
wounds as well as I could with rags torn
little brandy to drink he came to himself,
from my clothes. When I had given him a
and was able, but with great difficulty, to
speak. He said that he had met the gorilla
suddenly and face to face, and that it had
not attempted to escape. It was, he said,
a huge male, and seemed very savage. It
was in a very gloomy part of the wood, and
He said he took good aim, and fired when
the darkness, I suppose, made him miss.
the beast was only eight yards off.
ball merely wounded it in the side. It at
once began beating its breasts, and with the
greatest rage advanced upon him.

The

fables, no description, says Mr. Du Chaillu, can exceed the horror of its appearance, the ferocity of its attack, or the impish malignity of its nature. It is not a carnivorous animal, but eats enormously of its vegetable food; it is not gregarious, but generally found in pairs; nor does it usually live in trees, though the young may sometimes do so for safety. It avoids the hunter as long as it only hears him, but when they at last come face to face, the male animal, at least, never runs away. Probably he may be found sitting at the foot of a tree, the female feeding near. She gives the alarm and runs off with loud cries. Then her mate, sitting for a moment with a savage frown on his face, slowly rises to his feet, and, looking with glowing and malign eyes at the intruders, begins to beat his breast, and, lifting up his round head, utters his frightful roar. This begins with several sharp barks, like an enraged or mad dog, whereupon ensues a long, deeply gutteral, rolling roar, continued for over a minute, and which, doubled and multiplied by the resounding echoes of the forest, fills the hunter's ears like the deep rolling thunder of an approaching storm." The brute advances by short stages, stopping every now and then to roar and beat his vast chest with his paws, which make it resound like a great drum. His walk, from the disproportionate shortness of the hind "He stood his ground, and as quickly as legs to the heavy body, is a waddle, which he could reloaded his gun. Just as he raised he balances by swinging his long, thick it to fire the gorilla dashed it out of his muscular arms. "His deep-set gray eyes hands, the gun going off in the fall; and sparkle with gloomy malignity; the features then in an instant, and with a terrible roar, are contorted in hideous wrinkles; and the the animal gave him a tremendous blow slight, sharply cut lips, drawn up, reveal the with its immense open paw, frightfully laclong fangs and the powerful jaws, in which erating the abdomen, and with this single a human limb would be crushed as a bis-he sank, bleeding, to the ground, the monblow laying bare part of the intestines. As cuit." The experienced hunter reserves his ster seized the gun, and the poor hunter fire till the animal is about six yards off, for thought he would have his brains dashed if he misses, it is impossible for him to es- out with it. But the gorilla seemed to have cape. He must stand still and battle for looked upon this also as an enemy, and in his life, generally the poorest chance,-for his rage almost flattened the barrel between a single blow of the gorilla's heavy, crooked his strong jaws. paw, breaks his breast-bone or tears out his bowels; and no weapon which a man can wield can resist for an instant his enormous strength. On one occasion, when Mr. Du Chaillu's party were out hunting, one of them went off alone in a direction where he thought he could find a gorilla :

"We had been about an hour separated

"To run away was impossible. He would have been caught in the jungle before he had gone a dozen steps.

"When we came upon the ground the gorilla was gone. This is their mode when attacked-to strike one or two blows, and then leave the victims of their rage on the ground and go off into the woods."

The man died, but his probable destroyer was killed a day or two afterwards.

We have not left ourselves space to mention several other strange and formidable

I have examined the collection of mammalia with care, and there is not a specimen among them that indicates that the collector had traversed any new region. On the contrary, all the kinds contained in it have been received long ago from the different trading stations on the west coast of Africa, and can easily be procured from them; and the manner in which the specimens are prepared (bad state as they are in) shows that they must have been preserved in or near the habitation of civilized men, and not in "the forest" where "daylight is almost shut out; " and the whole of the twenty species which are said to be new to science dwindle into thin air.

creatures which Mr. Du Chaillu encountered, the zoological notes and the collection to the among which, venomous insects were the Zoological Society, it would soon have been most annoying; but he had much sport, and seen that his qualifications as a naturalist sometimes not a little danger, in pursuit of were of the lowest order, and that he has all the animals mentioned in his title-page. made few, if any, additions to our previous In his quest of striking natural scenes he knowledge. was less fortunate. He came within sound of a cataract on one of the largest rivers, which, from the aspect of the country through which it ran, must probably be one of the grandest anywhere existing; but his boat was too frail to face the rapids, and the land journey too destitute of supplies to be attempted. He was equally unsuccessful in attempting to ascend a mountain about twelve thousand feet high; from which enterprise, however, nothing turned him back but sheer starvation and the complete failure of his shoes. That he should ever have tried shows unusual resolution under the circumstances. Altogether, we cannot too strongly express our admiration of the undaunted pluck and resolution which carried him to the points actually accomplished in other directions. He performed the whole distance, eight thousand miles, on foot, and the amount of fever he went through may be judged of by the fact that he consumed in four years fourteen ounces of quinine.

From The Athenæum. THE NEW TRAVELLER'S TALES.

May 14, 1861. THE public seem to be under a delusion which, I think, has been greatly produced by what I must consider the unwise conduct of some fellows of one of the best-conducted, most excellent, and most justly popular of our scientific societies.

Some time ago the arrival of a new African traveller was announced. He read his paper at the Royal Geographical Society. It was soon discovered that his qualifications as a traveller were of the slightest description; but some of the fellows seem to have been so taken with his tales about the gorillas and other animals, that they have allowed him to make one of their rooms into a museum, and thus a great éclat has been given to his labors, certainly not on account of his geographical discoveries, for the map appended to his work is one of the most primitive that I have seen for years. If the Royal Geographical Society had transmitted

From the interest which some of the fellows of the Royal Geographical Society appear to attach to "Mr., Mrs., and Miss Gorilla," one would suppose that they thought that the animals were now for the first time brought to Europe, whereas we have been receiving specimens of them for the last fifteen years, both from the missionaries and the traders in those parts, until almost every museum in Europe is provided with specimens, and some of them, as, for example, that in the museum of Vienna, which was shown at the naturalists' meeting in 1856, is considerably larger than any shown at Whitehall Place.

Turning from the collection to the book, one must be struck with the improbable stories that it contains, and must observe that there is the same exaggeration in the illustrations (which have evidently been prepared in this country from the notes of the author, and not from sketches on the spot) as there is in the text. Some of them are copied from figures prepared in this country to represent other kinds, or for other purposes, and without acknowledgment.

As an instance, I may state that the young of the gorilla and the "Niarè,” or wild bull, are described as quite untamable. Now we have reliable accounts of young gorillas having been kept in confinement, and even shipped for England, and being any thing

but so violent; and as for the "Niarè," it is | belongs; but if any one wishes to satisfy the animal known in Sierra Leone and over himself how much an animal can be caricaCentral and West Africa as the bush cow, and the specimen of it that was alive for some years in this country, I can testify, from my own knowledge, was as mild and inoffensive as our own domestic cattle. To show the little reliance to be placed on the illustrations, I may state that the horns of this animal, in each of the three plates on which it is figured, are turned in a wrong direction. In the same way the horns of the "new antelope" (figured at p. 306), which 4s an animal that was described many years ago by Mr. Ogilby, under the name of Antelope euryceros, are so incorrectly represented, that they do not even show the section of the genus to which the species

tured, let him compare the plate of the "white-fronted hog" with the living specimen of the same species now alive in the Zoological Gardens, or with the figure of that animal in the Proceedings of the Society. Indeed, it would have been impossible to have identified these animals if we had not had the skins in the collection so as to make the comparison. I am sorry to have to make these observations, but I think the cause of truth and science requires it. We are overburdened with useless synonyma, and Natural History may be converted into a romance rather than a science by travellers' tales, if they are not exposed at the time. JOHN EDWARD GRAY.

THE collection of the Campana Museum at Rome has been purchased for the emperor of the French by M. Renier, of the Institute, and M. Cornu, the historical painter, who have been in Rome for the last six weeks conducting the negotiation of the purchase.

GEOLOGY OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS.-Some interesting details concerning the geology of the polar regions have been collected and brought before the Royal Geological Society by Dr. David Walker. They are the results of the author's observations during the voyage of the Fox in search of Sir John Franklin. On approaching the coast of South Greenland, the appearance of the mountains at once shows their igneous origin, and are found to be composed of granite, gneiss, and micaschist, with occasional intervals of quartzose rock. After proceeding along the coast line for some five hundred miles volcanic rocks appear. These are first seen at Disco Island, and continue, with a few interruptions, as far north as the expedition reached. The precise formation of the land between Jones' Sound and Lancaster Sound is not known, but from its turbular appearance it is most likely the same upper silurian limestone that occurs further westward in Barrow Strait. To the southward of Lancaster Sound silurian limestone appears as far as Possession Bay, where the primary and metamorphic rocks make their appearance. Beyond Croker's Bay, as far westward as visited, the formation is upper silurian limestone; the hills of this present tabulated fronts to the sea, with deep ravines intervening, rendering these hills somewhat cone-shaped. The west coast of

Regent Inlet is of the same formation. The fossils brought home by the author from these arctic regions astonish us by their resemblance to those of Dudley and Colebrookdale.

TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.-The various laws which were frequently enacted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to check drunkenness, or, at least, immoderate drinking of wine and spirits, proved utterly abortive, owing to the social life of the middle ages, which was chiefly based upon quaffing.

Charlemagne himself was obliged to order that the counts and margraves should at least be sober when sitting in courts of justice, while the German emperors were at their coronationceremony, asked, "whether they promise, by the help of God, to lead a sober life?" Indeed, all the laws and regulations of the sixteenth century were mainly directed against drunkenness, but not against drinking. Even Luther was no enemy to wine; witness the large goblet (still extant at Nüremberg) which he presented to his friend Jonas.

A temperance society was at last formed by the aristocracy in the sixteenth century, and the following were among the rules :—

1. To drink daily only 14 cups of wine. 2. Italian, Spanish, or hot-spiced wines are prohibited, beyond 1 cup a day, which must be deducted from the daily allowance.

3. For the further quenching of thirst, beer is allowed.

4. These 14 cups must not be drunk at once, but after at least three intervals.

[We republish entire, from the London Times of emblem of our nationality should be struck May 23 and 24, the magnificent paper of the his- from the Capitol at Washington. An adtorian Motley on the American Rebellion. Mr. Motley discusses the whole subject in a style of vance of the "Confederate troops" upon such singular grace and power, and exposes the that city; the flight or captivity of the Presireal character of the Southern Rebellion in so forcible a manner that his argument is unanswerable. dent and his Cabinet; the seizure of the The paper has a historical value aside from its im- national archives, the national title deeds, mediate interest, and we can do our readers no and the whole national machinery of foreign more thankful service than in laying it before them in full, at the risk of the exclusion of other intercourse and internal administration by matter.-N. Y. Evening Post.] the Confederates; and the proclamation from the American palladium itself of the Montgomery Constitution in place of the one devised by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay-a Constitution in which slavery should be the universal law of the land, the corner-stone of the political edifice-were events which seemed for a few days of intense anxiety almost probable.

THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL
WAR.

To the Editor of the Times: The de facto question in America has been referred at

last to the dread arbitrament of civil war. Time and events must determine whether the "great Republic" is to disappear from the roll of nations, or whether it is destined to survive the storm which has gathered over its head. There is, perhaps, a readiness in England to prejudge the case; a disposition not to exult in our downfall, but to accept the fact; for nations, as well as individuals, may often be addressed in the pathetic language of the poet

"Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, Tempora cum fuerint nubila, nullus erit." Yet the trial by the ordeal of battle has hardly commenced, and it would be presumptuous to affect to penetrate the veil of even the immediate future. But the question de jure is a different one. The right and the wrong belong to the past, are hidden by no veil, and may easily be read by all who are not wilfully blind. Yet it is often asked, Why have the Americans taken up arms ? Why has the United States Government plunged into what is sometimes called "this wicked war"? Especially it is thought amazing in England that the President should have recently called for a great army of volunteers and regulars, and that the inhabitants of the Free States should have sprung forward as one man at his call, like men suddenly relieved from a spell. It would have been amazing had the call been longer delayed. The national flag, insulted and defied for many months, had at last been lowered, after the most astonishing kind of siege recorded in history, to an armed and organized rebellion; and a prominent personage in the Government of the Southern "Confederacy" is reported to have proclaimed amid the exultations of victory that before the 1st of May the same cherished

THE UNION SENTIMENT.

Had this really been the result without a blow struck in defence of the national Government and the old Constitution, it is certain that the contumely poured forth upon the Free States by their domestic enemies and by the world at large would have been as richly deserved as it would have been amply bestowed. At present such a catastrophe seems to have been averted. But the levy in mass of such a vast number of armed men in the Free States, in swift response to the call of the President, shows how deep and pervading is the attachment to the Constitution and to the flag of Union in the hearts of the nineteen millions who inhabit those states. It is confidently believed, too, that the sentiment is not wholly extinguished in the nine million white men who dwell in the Slave States, and that, on the contrary, there exists a large party throughout that country who believe that the Union furnishes a better protection for life, property, law, civilization and liberty than even the indefinite extension of African slavery can do.

THE CONSPIRACY.

At any rate, the loyalty of the Free States has proved more intense and passionate than it had ever been supposed to be before. It is recognized throughout their whole people that the Cconstitution of 1787 had made us a nation. The efforts of a certain class of politicians for a long period had been to reduce our commonwealth to a confederacy. So long as their efforts had been confined to argument, it was considered sufficient to an

swer the argument; but now that secession, achieved our independence, but we had not instead of remaining a topic of vehement constructed a nation. We were not a body and subtle discussion, has expanded into politic. No laws could be enforced, no insurarmed and fierce rebellion and revolution, rections suppressed, no debts collected. Neicivil war is the inevitable result. It is the ther property nor life was secure. Great result foretold by sagacious statesmen almost Britain had made a treaty of peace with us, a generation ago, in the days of the tariff but she scornfully declined a treaty of com"nullification." "To begin with nullifica- merce and amity; not because we had been tion," said Daniel Webster in 1833, "with rebels, but because we were not a statethe avowed intention, nevertheless, not to because we were a mere dissolving league of proceed to secession, dismemberment, and jarring provinces, incapable of guaranteeing general revolution, is as if one were to take the stipulations of any commercial treaty. the plunge of Niagara, and cry out that he We were unable even to fulfil the condition would stop half-way down." And now the of the treaty of peace and enforce the stipplunge of secession has been taken, and we ulated collection of debts due to British subare all struggling in the vortex of general jects; and Great Britain refused in conserevolution. quence to give up the military posts which she held within our frontiers.

THE UNITED STATES A COMMONWEALTH.

The body politic known for seventy years

as the United States of America is not a con

For twelve years after the acknowledgment of our independence we were mortified by the spectacle of foreign soldiers occupying a long chain of fortresses south of the great lakes and upon our own soil. We were a confederacy. We were sovereign states. And these were the fruits of such a confederacy and of such sovereignty. It was, until the immediate present, the darkest hour of our history. But there were patriotic and sagacious men in those days, and their efforts at last rescued us from the condition of a confederacy. The "Constitution of the United States" was an organic law, enacted by the sovereign people of that whole territory which is commonly called in geographies and histories the United States of America. It was empowered to act directly,

federacy, not a compact of sovereign states, not a copartnership; it is a commonwealth, of which the Constitution drawn up at Philadelphia by the Convention of 1787, over which Washington presided, is the organic, fundamental law. We had already had enough of a confederacy. The thirteen rebel provinces, afterwards the thirteen original independent States of America, had been united to each other during the Revolutionary War by articles of confederacy. "The said states hereby enter into a firm league of friendship with each other." Such was the language of 1781, and the league or treaty thus drawn up was ratified, not by the people of the states, but by the state gov-by its own legislative, judicial, and execuernments the legislative and executive bodies, namely, in their corporate capacity. The Continental Congress, which was the central administrative board during this epoch, was a diet of envoys from sovereign states. It had no power to act on individuals. It could not command the states. It could move only by requisitions and recommendations. Its functions were essentially diplomatic, like those of the State-general of the old Dutch Republic, like those of the modern Germanic Confederation.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE NATION.

We were a league of petty sovereignties. When the war had ceased, when our independence had been acknowledged in 1783, we sank rapidly into a condition of utter impotence, imbecility, anarchy. We had

tive machinery, upon every individual in the country. It could seize his property, it could take his life, for causes of which itself was the judge. The states were distinctly prohibited from opposing its decrees or from exercising any of the great functions of soyereignty. The Union alone was supreme,

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the States to the contrary notwithstanding." any thing in the Constitution and laws of Of what significance, then, was the title of

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sovereign" states, arrogated in later days by communities which had voluntarily abdicated the most vital attributes of sovereignty?

THE GOVERNMENT AN ESTABLISHED

AUTHORITY.

But, indeed, the words "sovereign" and "sovereignty" are purely inapplicable to the

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