MAN-LIKE APES 

Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern
investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is
singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one,
presaging a reality.  Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the
geologist: the Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a western
world: and though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an
existence only in the realms of art, creatures approaching man more
nearly than they in essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal
as the goat's or horse's half of the mythical compound, are now not
only known, but notorious. 

I have not met with any notice of one of these MAN-LIKE APES of earlier
date than that contained in Pigafetta's 'Description of the Kingdom of
Congo,'* drawn up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez,
and published in 1598.  The tenth chapter of this work is entitled "De
Animalibus quae in hac provincia reperiuntur," and contains a brief
passage to the effect that "in the Songan country, on the banks of the
Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which afford great delight to the