river by a band of pongos, (ourang-outangs), but he had always kept it a
secret, for fear of giving me distress, as they were too far gone for
pursuit when be beheld them. He said they had her bound, and were
carrying her gently on their arms, but she was either dead or in a
swoon, for she was not crying, and her long hair was hanging down.

A whole year passed over my head like one confused dream; another came,
and during the greater part of it my mind was very unsettled. About the
beginning of last year, a strange piece of intelligence reached our
settlement. It was said that two maids of Kamboo had been out on the
mountains of Norroweldt gathering fruits, where they had seen a pongo
taller than any Kousi, and that this pongo had a beautiful white boy
with him, for whom he was gathering the choicest fruits, and the boy was
gambolling and playing around him, and leaping on his shoulders. We
applied to Karoo for assistance, who had a great number of slaves from
that country, much attached to him, who knew the language of the place
whither we were going, and all the passes of the country. He complied
readily with our request, giving us an able and intelligent guide, with
as many of his people as we chose. We raised in all fifty Malays and
Kousis; nine British soldiers, and every one of the settlers that could
bear arms, went with us, so that we had in all nearly a hundred men, the
blacks being armed with pikes, and all the rest with swords, guns, and
pistols. We journeyed for a whole week, travelling much by night, and
resting in the shade by day, and at last we came to the secluded
district of which we were in search, and in which we found a temporary
village, or camp, of one of these independent inland tribes.

From this people we got the heart-stirring intelligence, that a whole
colony of pongos had taken possession of that country, and would soon be
masters of it all; for that the Great Spirit had sent them a Queen from