ears,
with large and protuberant noses, very furry or very bristly hair,
and often strangely-coloured or strangely-placed eyes.
None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter.
Beyond these general characters their heads had little in common;
each preserved the quality of its particular species:
the human mark distorted but did not hide the leopard, the ox,
or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the creature
had been moulded. The voices, too, varied exceedingly.
The hands were always malformed; and though some surprised me by their
unexpected human appearance, almost all were deficient in the number
of the digits, clumsy about the finger-nails, and lacking any
tactile sensibility.
The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature
made of hyena and swine. Larger than these were the three bull-creatures
who pulled in the boat. Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also
the Sayer of the Law, M'ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat.
There were three Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature,
and several other females whose sources I did not ascertain.
There were several wolf-creatures, a bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I
have already described the Ape-man, and there was a particularly hateful
(and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen and bear, whom I hated
from the beginning. She was said to be a passionate votary of the Law.
Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little
sloth-creature. But enough of this catalogue.
At first I had a shivering horror of the brutes, felt all too keenly
that they were still brutes; but insensibly I became a little
habituated to the idea of them, and moreover I was affected by
Montgomery's attitude towards them. He had been with them so long
that he had come to regard them as almost normal human beings.
His London days seemed a glorious, impossible past to him.
Only once in a year or so did he go to Arica to deal with
Moreau's agent, a trader in animals there. He hardly met the finest
type of mankind in that seafaring village of Spanish mongrels.
The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed at first just as strange
to him as the Beast Men seemed to me,—unnaturally long in the leg,
flat in the face, prominent in the forehead, suspicious, dangerous,
and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like men: his heart
had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life.
I fancied even then that he had a sneaking kindness for some of these
metamorphosed brutes, a vicious sympathy with some of their ways,
but that he attempted to veil it from me at first.
M'ling, the black-faced man, Montgomery's attendant, the first of
the Beast Folk I had encountered, did not live with the others across
the island, but in a small kennel at the back of the enclosure.
The creature was scarcely so intelligent as the Ape-man, but far
more docile, and the most human-looking of all the Beast Folk;
and Montgomery had trained it to prepare food, and indeed to
discharge all the trivial domestic offices that were required.
It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with
dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures.
It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion.
Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular
names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he
would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey,
kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees.
But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved nothing so much as to be
near him.
I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand
things which had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became
natural and ordinary to me. I suppose everything in existence
takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings.
Montgomery and Moreau were too peculiar and individual
to keep my general impressions of humanity well defined.
I would see
with large and protuberant noses, very furry or very bristly hair,
and often strangely-coloured or strangely-placed eyes.
None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter.
Beyond these general characters their heads had little in common;
each preserved the quality of its particular species:
the human mark distorted but did not hide the leopard, the ox,
or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the creature
had been moulded. The voices, too, varied exceedingly.
The hands were always malformed; and though some surprised me by their
unexpected human appearance, almost all were deficient in the number
of the digits, clumsy about the finger-nails, and lacking any
tactile sensibility.
The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature
made of hyena and swine. Larger than these were the three bull-creatures
who pulled in the boat. Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also
the Sayer of the Law, M'ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat.
There were three Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature,
and several other females whose sources I did not ascertain.
There were several wolf-creatures, a bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I
have already described the Ape-man, and there was a particularly hateful
(and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen and bear, whom I hated
from the beginning. She was said to be a passionate votary of the Law.
Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little
sloth-creature. But enough of this catalogue.
At first I had a shivering horror of the brutes, felt all too keenly
that they were still brutes; but insensibly I became a little
habituated to the idea of them, and moreover I was affected by
Montgomery's attitude towards them. He had been with them so long
that he had come to regard them as almost normal human beings.
His London days seemed a glorious, impossible past to him.
Only once in a year or so did he go to Arica to deal with
Moreau's agent, a trader in animals there. He hardly met the finest
type of mankind in that seafaring village of Spanish mongrels.
The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed at first just as strange
to him as the Beast Men seemed to me,—unnaturally long in the leg,
flat in the face, prominent in the forehead, suspicious, dangerous,
and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like men: his heart
had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life.
I fancied even then that he had a sneaking kindness for some of these
metamorphosed brutes, a vicious sympathy with some of their ways,
but that he attempted to veil it from me at first.
M'ling, the black-faced man, Montgomery's attendant, the first of
the Beast Folk I had encountered, did not live with the others across
the island, but in a small kennel at the back of the enclosure.
The creature was scarcely so intelligent as the Ape-man, but far
more docile, and the most human-looking of all the Beast Folk;
and Montgomery had trained it to prepare food, and indeed to
discharge all the trivial domestic offices that were required.
It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with
dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures.
It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion.
Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular
names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he
would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey,
kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees.
But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved nothing so much as to be
near him.
I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand
things which had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became
natural and ordinary to me. I suppose everything in existence
takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings.
Montgomery and Moreau were too peculiar and individual
to keep my general impressions of humanity well defined.
I would see
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