Chapter Forty Two.
The Mundurucú Discourses of Monkeys.
The sun was just setting as the guaribas disappeared; and from this circumstance it was conjectured that they were on their return to some favourite resting-place. Trevannion supposed that they might be on their way to dry land; and, if so, the route they had taken might serve himself and party for a direction. He mentioned this to the Mundurucú, who shook his head, not doubtfully, but as a simple negative.
“You think it would be of no use our taking the direction in which they have gone?” said the miner interrogatively.
“No, patron; not a bit of good in that. They are as like to be going from terra firma as towards it. It’s all the same to them whether they sleep over land, or water, so long as they have the trees to cling to. They are now trooping to some roost they have a fancy for,—perhaps some very big tree,—which they use at all times for their night-rendezvous, and where others of the same tribe will be likely to meet them. These have been off to some favourite feeding-ground, where the fruit may be more plenty than in the neighbourhood of their regular dwelling-place; or they may have been upon some ramble for amusement.”
“What! do monkeys make such excursions?” inquired young Ralph.
“O yes,” replied the Mundurucú. “I’ve often met them trooping about among the trees, where nuts and fruits were in plenty; and have watched them, for hours at a time, without seeing them pluck a single one;—only chattering and screeching and laughing and playing tricks upon each other, as if they had nothing else to do. Neither have they when certain sorts of fruit are ripe, especially soft fruits, such as berries and the pulpy nuts of several kinds of palms, as the pupunha and assai. It is a little different at other seasons, when they have to live on the Brazil-nuts and sapucayas; then they have something to do to get at the kernels inside the thick shells, and at this they employ a good deal of their time.”
“Do they sleep perched on the trees, or have they nests among the branches in which they can lie down at their ease?”
“They have nests, but not for that. The females only use them when about to bring forth their young. As to sleeping at their ease, they can do that on the very slenderest of branches. It’s no hardship to them, as it is to us. Not a bit.”
“But do they not sometimes fall off in their sleep?”
“How could they do that, young master, when they have their tails to hold on by? Before going to sleep they take a turn or two of their long tail round a branch, not always the one their body is on, but more commonly a branch a little above it. For that matter they don’t need any branch to rest upon. They can go to sleep, and often do, hanging by the tail,—for that is the position in which they are most at ease; just as you would be reclining in a hammock. I’ve seen them scores of times asleep that way. To prove that they feel most at home when hanging by the tail, they take to it whenever any alarm comes suddenly upon them; and they want to be in readiness for retreat, in case of its proving to be an enemy.”
“What singular creatures!” said Ralph, half in soliloquy.
“You speak truth, young master. They have many an odd way, that would lead one to believe that they had as much sense as some kinds of men. You have seen how they picked up the old one that fell into the water; but I’ve seen them do a still stranger thing than that. It is but the commonest of their contrivances, put in practice every time they want to pluck a nut, or some fruit that grows near the end of a branch too slender to carry their weight. If there’s a stronger limb above, they go out upon it; and then, clinging together as you saw them do, they let themselves down till the last in the string can lay hold of the fruit. Sometimes there is no branch right over the spot; but that don’t hinder them from getting what they have coveted, if they can find a stout limb anyways near. Then they make their string all the same; and, by setting it in motion, they swing back and forward, until the lowest of the party is tossed out within reach of the fruit. I’ve seen them try this, and find that their string was just a few inches too short, when another monkey would glide down upon the others, and add his length to complete it. Then I’ve seen them make a bridge, young master.”
“Make a bridge! Are you in earnest? How could they?”
“Well, just in the same way as they get within reach of the nuts.”
“But for what purpose?”
“To get across some bit of water, as a fast-running stream, where they would be drowned if they fell in.”
“But how do they accomplish it? To make a bridge requires a skilled engineer among men; are there such among monkeys?”
“Well, young master, I won’t call it such skill; but it’s very like it. When on their grand journeyings they come to a stream, or even an igarápe like this, and find they can’t leap from the trees on one side to those growing on the other, it is then necessary for them to make the bridge. They go up or down the bank till they find two tall trees opposite each other. They climb to a high branch on the one, and then, linking together, as you’ve seen them, they set their string in motion, and swing backward and forward, till one at the end can clutch a branch of the tree, on the opposite side. This done the bridge is made, and all the troop, the old ones that are too stiff to take a great leap, and the young ones that are too weak, run across upon the bodies of their stouter comrades. When all have passed over, the monkey at the other end of the string lets go his hold upon the branch; and if he should be flung into water it don’t endanger him, as he instantly climbs up the bodies of those above him, the next doing the same, and the next also, until all have got safe into the trees.”
“Be japers,” exclaimed Tipperary Tom, “it’s wonderful how the craythers can do it! But, Misther Munday, have yez iver seen them fall from a tree-top?”
“No, never, but I’ve known one to leap from the top of a tree full a hundred feet in height.”
“Shure it was kilt dead then?”
“If it was it acted very oddly for a dead animal, as it had scarce touched the ground when it sprang back up another tree of equal height, and scampered to the top branches nearly as quick as it came down.”
“Ah!” sighed Trevannion, “if we had only the activity of these creatures, how soon we might escape from this unfortunate dilemma. Who knows what is before us? Let us pray before going to rest for the night. Let us hope that He, in whose hands we are, may listen to our supplications, and sooner or later relieve us from our misery.” And so saying, the ex-miner repeated a well-remembered prayer, in the response to which not only the young people, but the Indian, the African, and the Irishman fervently joined.