The Zoo Revisited/Chapter 9

F course this is “Jack,” the ourang-outan. And he ought to be, for his name being translated from the vernacular means, “the wise man of the wood.” But Jack is only a child of four years as yet, and, intelligent though he is, it is only the intelligence of a human baby, and will never, even if he live to the full span of ourang-outan life of five-and-twenty, be anything more. But he is well worth going to see, and, as a “show,” Jack having his hands washed is far superior to the lions being fed.

For Jack gets his hands very dirty in the course of a day or two, and then they are washed. A chair is taken into the cage, and the attendant, having got out a pail of warm water, soap, towels, and flannel, calls the ourang out. It is etiquette to wait till he is called, but he obeys cheerfully, and seats himself in the chair, and, with the most comical expression on his face conceivable, gives his left hand to the attendant. And while it is being soaped, and washed, and dried, and re-dried, polished, and vaselined, Jack sits there holding on with his other three hands to the chair as if he were afraid that some practical joke was going to be played off on him, and his head turned to one side, looking out through the bars, pretending that he is a suffering martyr, and all the time most absurdly betraying his pleasure in the performance. One hand done with, the other is given, and Jack holds the clean one up before his face, sniffs the soap and tastes the vaseline, and, as if satisfied that the job has been well and thoroughly done, drops the hand down by his side with a fine-lady affectation of being accustomed to luxuries that is irresistibly funny. One by one all his grimy, grubby hands are washed to a nice healthy pink, and then Jack is told he can go; and he does go, but with a deliberateness that suggests he would like to be called back. Arrived at his box, he seats himself, and submits each of the cleansed members to examination, and, quite content and comfortable, gives his hands a parting sniff, and lies down.

But it is not sleeping time yet, for Jack has a cold, and he has got to take some physic. This is given him in milk, and as a rule he takes it without giving any trouble, the apples or plantains that are laid out before him being quite sufficient incentive to be “a good boy and take the medicine.” But sometimes he is whimsical, and all the patience and good humour of the attendant and the sight of the fruit, which are to be his when he empties his pannikin, are not enough. He will put it to his lips, sip it, give a little cry of reluctance, and try to spill it. Again, and again, and again, it is offered. No, Jack will have none of it. He will take the pannikin, smell its contents, touch them with his pouted-out under-lip, but every time it is the same—he whimpers and tries to upset it. Then the attendant pretends he will waste no more time with him, and, picking up the fruit, makes believe to go. At this the ourang throws itself down on its back on the straw, rolls from side to side holding its toes with its hands and screaming like a naughty baby in a passion. “Well, then, come and take your medicine, and here's an apple and here's a plantain for you;” and back comes Jack—but only to go through exactly the same performance. The keeper repeats this threat, and the ourang is again rolling about on the straw in uncontrollable grief. And so the fight goes on. Then the keeper really does leave the cage, taking the fruit with him, and then Jack's grief is no sham but very real indeed. He cries aloud and gets out of temper. So the keeper comes back, and a compromise is arrived at. Jack is to drink “a little,” and then he shall have his fruit. To this the ourang assents, and, having fulfilled his part of the bargain with a ludicrous imitation of being disgusted at the taste of what he has to drink, he receives the fruit, and peace is restored on the best possible basis of mutual satisfaction. Jack's blanket is then brought in and handed to him, and the ourang returns to his box, and it is really most interesting to see the cleverness with which he so manipulates it that he has it completely under him and over him with enough left to tuck in. And so, with his head pillowed on his hand and his face just peering out from under the blanket, Jack gives a comfortable little sigh, and closes his eyes.

He has been taught a few simple tricks—taking sweetmeats out of a pocket, putting a straw through the keyhole, and so forth; and there is no reason why, as he is under the same expert professors who educated the reasoning powers of Sally the chimpanzee, he should not, if he lives to her age, learn as much as she did. But Sally lived in the Zoo nearly eight years—probably the longest time any “man-ape” has survived in captivity in a northern climate. Nor can this be wondered at, in the ourang-outan perhaps least of all, for “the wise man of the wood” inhabits only and, and is found nowhere else; and the character of these two islands, their climate and vegetation, may safely be called the very worst training possible for subsequent life in a cold country. Even the Gaboon, where the gorilla haunts, is a trifle better, for the ourangs delight by nature in the steamy atmosphere of the lower-lying swampy lands, where vegetation is most intense and the wild orchards most productive. When travelling, they seldom descend to the ground, but pass from tree to tree, often at great altitudes, walking along the larger limb of one till they reach the small boughs of the next, and swinging themselves by them into it, and so proceeding mile after mile. When we remember the weight of these great apes, it seems almost incredible that vegetation of such loftiness is to be found anywhere growing in such interwoven density as to make a continuous highway for these bulky and heavy-treading creatures. Their food is of great variety, but all lush and juicy, and being very fastidious pick and choose as they go, wasting far more than they eat.

It is not extraordinary, therefore, the ourangs brought away from such a climate, from an arboreal life and “fine confused feeding,” should be liable to disease in a cramped space and under the stereotyped conditions of life in a cage. A tendency to chest and throat complaints is always present, and if visitors only knew it, it is they themselves, with their wet clothes, waterproofs, and dripping umbrellas, who as often as not give the man-apes that are brought to the Zoo “their death of cold.” For himself, Jack is very careful in trying not to catch cold, and it is delightful to see the skill with which he completely covers himself with straw whenever he lies down. In their wild state they construct shelters for themselves against the rain, and sleep at night on platforms which are often roughly roofed over, never getting up, unless alarmed, until the sun is high and the dew is gone off the leaves. During the warmest part of the day they are abroad feeding, returning before sunset to their sleeping places, which are generally built in low and well-sheltered trees.

Jack is very good-tempered and easily amused; a broomstick, for instance, sufficing to keep him at play, or, failing even that, the straw he lies on and his own toes. Just like an ordinary human baby, he lies on his back sprawling about, catching hold of his own feet and rolling from side to side. Occasionally, however, he gets out of temper, and is then nothing more or less than a spoilt child in a temper, his passion subsiding as suddenly and unreasonably as it began. In its wild state the ourang is curiously inoffensive; intrusion upon its privacy excites only its curiosity, and attack perplexes and alarms it. But it does not fight, and though repeatedly wounded appears to think only of escape. Of course the natives tell tales of its awful ferocity, just as Du Chaillu was filled up with narratives of the bloodthirstiness of the gorilla by his attendants. But trustworthy English travellers all assure us that the man-apes are singularly mild in manner, the ourang especially. Of course, if driven into a corner and at bay for its life, the ourang might be expected to defend itself as fiercely as any other animal, even a sheep, and its great strength and powerful jaws would make it a dangerous antagonist in a hand-to-hand encounter. But there are no authenticated cases on record of fights with ourang-outans, only rather sickening narratives of repeated woundings on the one side and silent, patient endurance on the other. It is Wallace who tells us of one hunt in which the ourang, having had both legs broken, its thigh and the base of the spine shattered, its neck shot through and its jaw smashed by six successive bullets, still struggled only to conceal itself in foliage, and its strength failing it fell to the ground from its lofty perch with a terrible thud, and had to be despatched on the ground. And all this time it uttered no sound, its thoughts not being of defiance or even defence, but simply concealment or escape from this, to it, inexplicable pursuit. Every year these interesting creatures are becoming rarer. In Sumatra they are even now very scarce where quite recently they were common, and, now that Borneo has become in so many directions a field for enterprise and exploitation, “the wise men of the woods” may be expected to disappear altogether before long from their present haunts.