Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/255

Rh Duke Ernst, of Coburg-Gotha, and near the same place we met the troop moving half-way up on the rocky slope of the hill. On the duke's motion, we resolved to offer them fight. Seven men, armed with patent rifles, opened the attack. At the first volley the females took to flight with the young ones, while the males not only did not flee, but advanced, and in less than no time a formidable hail of stones whistled around our heads. Some of the stones thrown were as large as a man's head. It was full time for us to withdraw, and so we did. The monkeys remained the masters of the battle-field.

On my second voyage to Eastern Soudan we stopped in Khartoum during the rainy season. I suffered much, even more than I am suffering here in New York, from fever and chills. In the long, tedious hours of leisure we made a collection of monkeys, and those animals cheered me up many a time in my physical and mental troubles. We played with them, and at the same time undertook their training, and that in a fashionable manner. So we gave them riding-lessons. An old, fat, lazy donkey had the honor to serve as horse, and, although the apes showed disgust and fear at first, one single lesson was sufficient to initiate them into the secrets of the noble sport, and in a few days they were, in their way, masters in the art. They would mount the donkey three, four, and five at a time, the first one embracing fondly the neck of the trotter with the fore-hands and cramping his hind-hands convulsively in the pelt of the animal's abdomen; the next one taking hold of his comrade, and securing his equilibrium in the same way by means of the hind-hands; and so on in a file. A funnier sight than this, four or five grinning apes closely nestled to the donkey's back, can hardly be imagined. The gray-haired trotter sometimes had to suffer from the mischievous riders, and did not conceal his feelings, to the great amusement of his tormentors. Besides playing, the monkeys were instructed in many little arts and tricks, and on that occasion I learned to appreciate them as smart and most sagacious creatures.

But passion makes them blind—unlike men, as it is said by the monkey-haters—as if men always kept quiet, composed, even-minded, and sober! As well as the apes in general, our baboons were passionately fond of strong liquors, and had a peculiar propensity for merisa, a kind of beer made of the grains of durrah by the inhabitants of the Soudan. Brandy was not to their taste, but, unfortunately, they made an exception one day. After having swallowed copious quantities of merisa, each one of the troop was offered a big glass of date-brandy, which he drank. As a consequence they became completely intoxicated, insolent, passionate, bestial, and grinned and gamboled in a fearful manner; in one word, they offered the hideous caricature of drunken men. The next day thirteen of the drunkards were suffering from the consequences of the spree, and looked sick unto death. All food gave them nausea; they turned away with