Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/177

Rh nuts and bursting fruits—are extreme droll and cunning; and their grimaces; whether in tricksiness or anger,—screaming and muttering as though much depended on their eloquence—are irresistibly ludicrous. When hungry their over-reaching habits and quarrels, over a discovery of food—each feeling greater pleasure in abstracting the store of his neighbour than in consuming of his own are incessant.

They are in the habit of shaking-fruit or nuts from unapproachable boughs and hurling at each other when on inaccessible elevations; and their treatment of the sick and incapable is barbarously comical; while their method of settling disputes among themselves is most summary and decisive. They often form themselves into a kind of ladder or chain and suspended from trees sway themselves backwards and forwards till they have crossed a stream by swinging the other end of this chain bridge of monkeys on to a tree on the opposite bank.

One night a monkey belonging to a large tribe occupying the trees around, had been so teased by the musquitoes as to be unable for several hours, to enjoy his usual repose.