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<noinclude><pagequality level="3" user="Zoeannl" /><div class="pagetext">{{rh|11|THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES.| }}
</noinclude>notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of
any animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and
are due to an Englishman.
The first edition of that most amusing old book,
"Purchas his Pilgrimage," was published in 1613, and
therein are to be found many references to the statements
of one whom [[Author:Samuel Purchas|Purchas]] terms "Andrew Battell (my neere
neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under
Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of
Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him went
farre into the countrey of Angola;" and again, "my
friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of
Congo many yeares," and who, "upon some quarell
betwixt the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant of
a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the
woods." From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas
was amazed to hear "of a kinde of Great Apes, if they
might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice
as bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength pro-
portionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men
and women in their whole bodily shape.<ref>"Except this that their legges had no calves."—[Ed. 1626.] And in a marginal note, "These great apes are called Pongo's." </ref> They lived
on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and
in the night time lodged on the trees."
This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its
statements than a passage in the third chapter of the
second part of another work—"Purchas his Pilgrimes,"
published in 1625, by the same author—which has been often,
though hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is
entitled, "The strange adventures of Andrew Battell, of
Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola,
who lived there and in the adioning regions neere eighteene
yeeres." And the sixth section of this chapter is<noinclude>
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