THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS;
OR,
NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.

THE ADVENTURES OF POLYDORUS MARASQUIN, THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS.

BEETON’S BOY’S OWN LIBRARY.

THE
MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS;
OR,
NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

THE PHILOSOPHER AND HIS MONKEYS,
THE PROFESSOR AND THE CROCODILE,
AND OTHER
STRANGE STORIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS,
MANY OF THEM BY
GUSTAVE DORÉ.

LONDON:
WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1873.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Origin of my family name of Marasquin.—Mistake in this respect on the part of my ambitious Grandfather.—My Ancestors’ profession honourable, but dangerous.—Mine the same.—A Tiger deprives me of my Father, whose Business I carry on.—My Fondness for Animals, and my skill in stuffing them.—The terrible Tricks which they play me.—The Malay Pirates more untamable than my Animals.—The English Stations founded to destroy them are devastated by Yellow Fever and something else.—Vice-Admiral Campbell visits my Menagerie.—The rare and curious Animals it contained.—Baboons and Chimpanzees.—Passions and rivalries.—An Ape as wicked as a Human Being.—My Mother perishes in the Flames.—I determine on a voyage to Oceania.—I charter a Chinese Junk, and find it manned by Pirates.—We encounter a fearful Tempest[Page 9]
CHAPTER II.
We are Shipwrecked.—I alone escape.—I find myself on an unknown island.—A strange form appears to me and vanishes.—A deluge of Apes.—I am cudgelled with a rattan cane.—Am saved at length by my cravat.—I am parched with thirst.—I discover water.—Four thousand of us drink in company.—Ingenious way of procuring fruit from the top of a tall tree.—Two valets-de-chambre, such as are seldom seen in Europe.—I miraculously escape their care[Page 27]
CHAPTER III.
I am attacked with delirium.—I set out on a journey of discovery in the dead of night.—I encounter a boa, and a bat with gigantic wings.—I reach the sea shore.—Simplicity of the oyster; acuteness of the Ape.—I hoist a signal, and then fall asleep from sheer exhaustion[Page 44]
CHAPTER IV.
I have a very agitated dream.—During my waking moments I unconsciously commit a murder.—At night time I encounter a strange apparition in the middle of the forest.—A great light illumines the air.—I advance towards it, buoyed up with hope.—It suddenly disappears.—The dawn discloses to me a most singular sight.—I witness the proceedings of a court-martial the members composing which have each four hands.—Disgraceful corruption of justice.—Ridiculous parody on the manners and institutions of the human race[Page 52]
CHAPTER V.
The court-martial breaks up.—I secretly follow the members of it.—I distinguish some houses between the trees, and believe myself to be at last among my fellow-men.—My hopes are crushed by discovering the devastated condition of the settlement.—I meet with Saïmira and Mococo, the latter in captivity.—I recognise in the president of the court-martial one of my two baboons of Macao.—This discovery troubles me, the more so when I find that Karabouffi’s power is supreme.—Foreseeing the peril I should be in if recognised by him, I hide myself in a grotto.—I am visited by Saïmira.—Weariness becomes at length more intolerable than danger.—The light already seen reappears.—I leave my retreat in search of it[Page 66]
CHAPTER VI.
Finding a volcano.—New peril to which I am exposed.—The merchant is recognised by his old merchandise.—Three guttural cries.—The living garland.—It swings to and fro, and then performs a furious rotatory movement over the crater of a blazing volcano.—My thoughts at this moment.—I am flung to the ground, and swoon away.—On recovering, I am ushered into the presence of Karabouffi the First, whom I find transformed into a bird.—Monkey scribes and living telegraphic communication[Page 73]
CHAPTER VII.
Bell-ringing by the Monkeys.—Disorder in Monkey Villas.—Hungry, I discover stores.—His Majesty in a jar of quinces.—Scrambling for Nuts.—Monkeys tipsy.—Fear of their intoxicated revels.—Night falls as I am in the midst of a terrible uproar.—I discover candles and lucifer matches.—The Monkeys find them also.—Candle dance by the Apes[Page 83]
CHAPTER VIII.
An energetic pianiste.—Vigorous dancers.—A bevy of quadrumanous beauties.—The parasol polka.—Amatory tomfooleries.—I am compelled to take part in a new musical air.—Am commanded to climb up a tall pole.—Am forced to jump through hoops, throw somersaults, and cut capers.—Am indebted to Saïmira for a respite[Page 91]
CHAPTER IX.
I barricade myself in.—I am besieged.—The verandah becomes a fort.—What I discover at the end of a forgotten room.—Lord Campbell’s journal.—What this journal says.—The Malay pirates and the Sultan of Sooloo.—Three hundred junks.—A formidable hunt.—Death of a mysterious and colossal mandrill.—Explanation of the white skeleton.—Torture of a man compelled to drink nothing but excellent old wine.—A poignard stuck in the sand.—The last fête at the station.—How it terminates.—End of an unfinished journal[Page 102]
CHAPTER X.
A hundred bottles of champagne not worth a glass of water.—My clothes leave me.—I commence the combat.—Great fight of a man against an island full of apes.—The verandah about to fall.—It does not last any longer.—A skin saves me[Page 118]
CHAPTER XI.
Whence this enchanted skin comes.—I owe to it my life and the crown.—In what manner I govern.—I learn the fate of the English station[Page 127]
CHAPTER XII.
Royal happiness troubled by a rent.—I am more and more adored by my subjects.—A cloud in the sky.—Sinister preoccupation.—My kingdom for a pair of trousers!—Supreme joy of being an animal.—My happiness again troubled.—A fatal tear[Page 137]
CHAPTER XIII.
Deliverance.—I see my native land again.—O Macao!—My immortality[Page 144]
Herr von Schlieffen and His Monkeys[153]
The Professor and the Crocodile[175]
Tree Life in General, and Monkeys in Particular[195]
The Monkey amongst Men, or the House in Regent’s Park[247]
Monkey Legends and Anecdotes[287]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Adventures of Polydorus Marasquin, the Man among the Monkeys[Frontispiece]
PAGE.
Clouds upon clouds of apes, of all forms, colours, and sizes, clambering up the trees, rolling themselves among the branches like squirrels, or taking possession of the ground about me[30]
Quick as lightning, he seized the branch of cane which I had thrown on the ground, and before I had time to place myself in a posture of defence, showered blow after blow on my arms and legs[33]
The banks of the lake were covered along their entire length by those very apes who had so pitilessly tormented, jeered at, and beaten me[36]
While he was speaking, these unfortunate wretches trembled all over, from head to foot[63]
They went to spend their honeymoon in an isolated spot which I had selected for them[130]
After having dug a trench seven feet long, I interred myself with all possible precautions[132]
Covered with my tattered and well-worn skin, but still holding sufficiently together for me to be taken for a mandrill[147]
Bonnet and Macaque Monkeys[252]
Rhesus Monkey and Young[253]
Anubis Baboon[255]
Wanderoo Monkey[255]
Black-faced Spider Monkey[259]
Squirrel[263]
Squirrel Monkey, and Tee-Tee[263]
Ring-tailed Lemur[266]
The Aye-Aye[268]