acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone
donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et
imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et
industria Joan. Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum
exornata. Francofurti, MDXCVIII.

FIG. 1.--SIMIAE MAGNATUM DELICIAE.--De Bry, 1598.

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 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 woodes." 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 proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like
men and women in their whole bodily shape.* They lived on such wilde
fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the night time lodged on
the trees."

[footnote] *"Except this that their legges had no
calves."--[Ed. 1626.] And in a marginal note, "These great
apes are called Pongo's."

This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements than