Tarzan of the Apes. Edgar Rice Burroughs

      

      TARZAN

       OF THE APES

      By

      EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

      This edition published by Dreamscape Media LLC, 2016

      www.dreamscapeab.com * [email protected]

      6940 Hall Street, Holland, OH 43528

      877.983.7326

       To

       Emma Hulbert Burroughs

      CONTENTS

       I Out to Sea

       II The Savage Home

       III Life and Death

       IV The Apes

       V The White Ape

       VI Jungle Battles

       VII The Light of Knowledge

       VIII The Tree-Top Hunter

       IX Man and Man

       X The Fear-Phantom

       XI "King of the Apes"

       XII Man's Reason

       XIII His Own Kind

       XIV At the Mercy of the Jungle

       XV The Forest God

       XVI "Most Remarkable"

       XVII Burials

       XVIII The Jungle Toll

       XIX The Call of the Primitive

       XX Heredity

       XXI The Village of Torture

       XXII The Search Party

       XXIII Brother Men

       XXIV Lost Treasure

       XXV The Outpost of the World

       XXVI The Height of Civilization

       XXVII The Giant Again

       XXVIII Conclusion

      TARZAN OF THE APES

      CHAPTER I

      OUT TO SEA

      I HAD this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.

      When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.

      I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it may be true.

      The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.

      If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting.

      From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead man's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi.

      The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families.

      The Englishmen in Africa went even further; saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since when their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to serve.

      And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination.

      Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battle fields — a strong, virile man — mentally, morally, and physically.

      In stature he was above the average height; his eyes were gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army training.

      Political ambition had caused him to seek transference from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him, still young, intrusted with a delicate and important commission in the service of the Queen.

      When he received this appointment he was both