What a work might be written, both horrible and grotesque, about all the ape-men or man-apes that have been introduced by travellers to the notice of the world! Science, it is true, ignores them all, but Fancy, I think, gets along better without Science. Classification and microscopic investigation are no doubt excellent things in their way, but they interfere very awkwardly with the hearty conception of a good-all-round monster; and, as a matter of fact, if travellers had been mere hair-splitting, “finicking” professors, we should never have had that substantial Fauna of Mystery which we now possess. Fortunately, however, they have, as a rule, been courageous, open-hand.ed fellows, who would as soon think of sticking at an extra horn or hoof, or shirking a mane or a tail, as of deserting a comrade in danger.
The result of their generous labors has been the collection of as wholesome a set of monsters as could have been wished; gravitating, moreover, as it is right they should, towards mankind, until, indeed, they actually merge in humanity. Professor Owen, who wages desperate war, and very properly, against the existence of all things of which he has not seen a bit, refuses, of course, to admit the last gradation altogether. But Professor Huxley, who, I believe, is really in his heart of hearts pining secretly for a tailed man to be found, laughs to scorn the dry theory of the hippocampus minor; and if he were only to travel to-morrow into an unknown land, I am not at all sure that he would not ultimately emerge from some primeval forest hand in hand with the “missing link.” In the meantime he could not do better than accept the Soko. For the establishment of the Soko’s individuality there are teeth, skin, and skulls in existence, and the last have been declared
