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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 21
Page 11
I left Lima five days after my arrival, on February 5th, going by steamer to the port of Mollendo, where I arrived on February 7th. There I met the railway line of the Peruvian Corporation from the sea coast to Arequipa and Cuzco. A magnificent private car had been placed at my disposal by the Peruvian Corporation, in which I was able to make myself comfortable for the several days which the journey lasted. Not only so, but the Peruvian Corporation kindly looked after my welfare in a most thoughtful way during the whole time I travelled on their line, for which I am indeed extremely grateful, as the travelling in that country would have otherwise been less pleasant.
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett, a very excellent observer, in describing the habits of a male _Hylobates syndactylus_ which remained for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the erect posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or, what is more usual, he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run down if, while pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing.... When he walks in the erect posture, he turns the leg and foot outward, which occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow-legged."
One of the best authorities for the period from the Conquest to 1141 is the Historia Ecclesiastica of ORDERIC VITALIS (A. le Prevost, Societe de l'Histoire de France, 1838-55). Born in England in 1075, of a Norman father, a clerk, and an English mother, he was sent by his father at the age of ten to the monastery of St. Evroul, and there he spent his life. The atmosphere in this monastery was favourable to study. It had an extensive library, and Orderic had at his command good sources of information, though he himself took no part in the events he describes. He paid some visits to England in which he obtained information, and as he always looked upon himself as an Englishman, his history naturally includes England as well as Normandy. He began to write about 1123, and from that date on he may be regarded as a contemporary authority, but from the Conquest the book has in many places the value of an original account. It is an exasperating book to use because of the extreme confusion in which the facts are arranged, or left without arrangement, the account of a single incident being often in two widely separated places. But the book rises much above the level of mere annals, and while perhaps not reaching that of the philosophical historian, gives the reader more of the feeling that a living man is writing about living men than is usual in medieval books. It reveals in the writer a lively imagination, which, while it does not affect the historical value of the narrative, gives it a pictorial setting. Orderic's interest in the minuter details of life and in the personality of the men of his time imparts a strong human element to the book; nor is the least useful feature of the work the writer's critical judgment on men and events, generally on moral grounds, but often assisting our knowledge of character and the causes of events.
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