Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/254

240 to manage as a troop of these monkeys, which peculiarity brings them near the hopeful youth of modern age. Another proof of their superior intellect may be found in the fact that they avail themselves of the means afforded by others to make their life as comfortable as possible.

I had often seen and closely observed individual baboons in captivity, but had never had a chance to meet those interesting animals living the life of liberty in organized troops. That pleasure was in store for me one morning, in the year 1862. I was traveling in Bogosland at the time. On the morning in question I found myself separated for a while from my companions, and had just sat down to take a short rest when I heard a kind of strange barking, coming from a steep cluster of rocks in the vicinity. Some minutes before my attention had been aroused by a number of curiously shaped forms on the summit of the rocks, but I came to the conclusion that they were large blocks of stone. The barking disabused me, inasmuch as the forms, true and genuine baboons, were now starting up. Considering the shouting of the animals as a personal provocation, I hurried up the hill and fired a shot at the troop, which at once took to their heels and were soon out of sight. About half an hour later, after I had joined my friends, we saw the same troop in file on a narrow bridge running at considerable height along a rocky wall. Another gunshot made them disappear once more, but a short distance farther, where the valley turned at a sharp angle, we met them just at the moment when they were crossing to reach the opposite hills. Our hounds, though trained to hunt hyenas, hesitated in bewilderment, but soon gave tongue and made an impetuous rush at the monkeys. At once the old males rallied and faced the dogs, forming a wide semicircle, roaring, grinning, and furiously beating the ground with their hands. Their threatening attitude and spiteful glances frightened the hounds, which recoiled in amazement. The monkeys took advantage of this momentary failure of our animals and retreated in haste. When the latter were rallied and started for a fresh attack, there were only a few more in the valley, and the last of the stragglers was a pug of about six months, which retreated in agonizing terror to the top of a large block of stone where the hounds set it. "That pug will be ours," I shouted, but was thoroughly mistaken. One of the senior males, a strong, powerful individual, started from the other side of the valley, advanced quietly toward the block, pride and mischief shining in his eyes, marched straight to the hounds, which trembled under his vicious glances and threatening gesticulations, climbed the stone, fondled the young one, put it on his back and calmly returned, while we were standing there all startled. Similar acts of self-exposure of a male are only found among monkeys, while among all the other animals, even the lions, it is always the female which risks life to save her cub.

Some time afterward I crossed the same valley in company with