MEN LIVING IN TREES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XL, Issue 3198, 26 December 1884, Page 3

MEN LIVING IN TREES.

A Remabkable Race of Hairy People. {Philadelphia Times.) " I am prepared to swallow the whole story, except the pouches Id the mouth," said a gentleman the other day to whom Professor George G. Shelly, anthropologist and member of the Geographical Society, was recounting the story of the capture of a hairy family, clearly human, but bearing many strong resemblances to the anthropoid apes which were secured by himself and the well-known explorer, Carl Bock, aided by some native soldiers, m the wilds of Laos m the year 1882. " There are," said the Professor, " three distinct races of men who live m. trees. Theae are Indians m South America, who inhabit the borders of the Orinoco, Tucuya and Madera rivers ; the Veddas of Ceylon and the Krao-Moniek of Laos, a dependency of Siatn. KraoMoniek means man-monkey. Laos is a part of the world which has never been thoroughly explored, and but comparatively little is known about it by geographers and scientists. It contains from eight hundred to one thousand square miles, and lies between the fifteenth and twentieth degrees of north latitude, north of Siam, east of the Menam-Khong, west of Annam, and about four hundred miles south-west of Tonquin. The reason why (Laos lias not been thoroughly explored is because almost every one who has attempted it has died of malarial fever. That part of the country m which the Krao lives is very swampy, is inhabited only by the men who live m the trees and by elephants and snakes. The people live m trees to escape the snakes and the wet ground. They weave the branches of two trees together and build huts therein. In climbing the trees they use their toes as a monkey does. They do not grasp the tree with their legs as we do. They do not use fire. They live on dried fish, wild rice, and the rind of the green cocoanut. Their only weapon is a club. THE BTJBMESE KING'S HAIRY FAMILY. " Ten years ago Carl Bock, the author of ' The Man Hunters of Borneo ' and 'My Travels m Siam,' was travelling m Asia on behalf of Mr Farini. the English Barnum, to look for the tall people which were said to live there. In the court of the King of Burmah he saw and talked with a hairy family, which were kept by tho King for his amusement, as European Kings formerly kept fools and dwarfs. Bock tried m every way to secure them to take to Europe, but ho failed. He offered 100,000 dols for one of them, but money is no object there ; they have more of it than they know what to do with. These people that Bock saw were the grandchildren of a hairy coupla which Crawford, who went to Burmah m 1835 as English Plenipotentiary, saw there, and of which he published an account m his book, ' A Mission to the Court of Ava.' Crawford said that these people had been given to the King of Burmah by the King of Laos. " Early m 1882 I joined Carl Bock at Singapore. We went up the Straits of Malacca and made an expedition into Rnmbo, m the Malay Peninsula, where it was reported that a hairy race lived called Jaccoons, but we did not find them. We then went to Rangoon and thence to Bankok, the capital of Siam. Bock had once cured the Prime Minister of Siam of a malignant disorder. This was the means of procuring us an escort, twenty elephants, and letters to the King of Laos. After a fonr months' journey, partly by land and partly by water, we reached Kjang-Kjang, the capital of Laoß. IN JTHE SSVAMra OF LAOS. "Our letter from the King of Siam procured us the good offices of the King of Laos, who gave us guides, fresh elephants, an escort of ten native soldiers, armed with spears and bows and poisoned arrows. After a journey of several weeks we came to the swamps where tho hairy people lived. But we had hard work to catch them or even to tee them. They are wonderfully alert, their scent is remarkably keen, and they are very shy and timid. We saw many of their huts built up m the branches of trees, before we saw a person. At last we surprised and surrounded a family, a man, wife and child, at their meal. We made a dash for them and captured them. The parents made a little resistance, and the child fought, scratched, and bit like a monkey. None of them were clothed m anything but hair. We took them to Kjang-Kjang, and there the King refused to allow the woman to go oat of the country. He had a superstition that it would bring him bad luck. She ia kept m his court and treated with high consideration. She appeared to have little affection for the child, and made no opposition to its being taken from her. We started for Bankok with the father and ohild. At a stopping-place called Chieng-May the whole party was attacked with cholera. The hairy man wo had captured and three of the escort died. The rest recovered, though Mr Bock came very near dying. We landed m Europe with the child on October 4th, 1882. The child is the child now known as Krao, We know by her teeth that she is oighl years old. She talks English and German, can read and write, and hai developed the true feminine love of fine olothes. # MODEST AND AFFECTIONATE. "She is modest, affectionate, playful am easily managed. Every part of her hod; is covered with hair, except her palms anc soles. The hair on her foroarm growi up ward, that on her back crows inwarc towards the spine and will Form a sort o rrtane, aa her father and mother had when she grows older. Her forehead i covered with thick, black hair about threi eighths of an inch long. The hair of ho forehead is entirely dUtlnot from th hair on her head. Her hands and feet th'cwgh entirely human In Bhapo, haVo th

i- prehensible qualities of the monkei '• hand. She has thirteen dorsal vertebr ■» and thirteen pairs of ribs, like the chii -3 panzee, while we have only twelve. Ai a she has pouches m her mouth, m whi 0 she carries nuts and other food like tl l ' a apes." At this point the visitor made the r _ mark which stands at the beginning „ this article. Professor Shelly disappear! c for a moment and returned with tl child. The pouches m the mouth we: ; f there and m each one of them was filbert almost as big as a hickory nut, an 1 all that the Professor had said aboi her was_ proved to be true. SV ■, talked intelligently, and wrote hi ■ own name on the back of a photi graph of herself, which she presented t t her caller. She has been examine ' by Professor Virchow, of Berlin Unive sity ; Professor Kirchoff and Professc 1 Welcker, of Halle University ; Professc j Haeckel, of Jena ; Professor Lucae, < Frankfort-on-the-Main ; Professor Hali I Washington, D. C, and many oth< scientists, and much has been writte about her m the medical and scientif. journals.