In Phayre’s History of Burma it is mentioned that “the loud, deep-toned cries of the hoolook ape ... resound dismally in those dark forest solitudes, and startle the traveller ...” (ch. xxii). They would startle only those who did not recognise in the resounding “Oo-oo-oos” the voices of harmless, primitive communities of hairy little black men and women, called gibbons, the smallest of the apes that closely resemble humanity. They are probably the strongest of us all in the arms, in proportion to their size; for it is on their agility in the trees that they depend to escape their enemies.

It was in an Upper Burman forest that one of them was noticed a few years ago, pursued by a leopard, which had got between him and the rest of the tribe. What handicapped the little black man—or was it a woman?—was the bareness of the trees. If the trees had been more thickly clad the spotted enemy could not have kept him in [195] ]sight; but, as it was, whenever the gibbon looked down, the leopard’s eyes were on him; and if he paused to rest, it seemed about to mount. “Oo-oo-oo!” On, on, on he had to go, there was no rest for the gibbon. It was like Dante’s Hell. He cried pitifully, incessantly, “Oo-oo-oo,” and his kinsfolk answered him across the glen; but, what could they do? They could no more mob a leopard than the swallows could. “Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo!”

If he could have rejoined them, however, he would have been safe; for then the leopard could not have tired him out. So said the countrymen, who explained the ways of “Mr Spots”; but in this instance the leopard was able to keep between him and the rest. The intervening space was increasing. Did the little man know some round-about way? “Oo-oo-oo!” The others answered him, as if to say, “Cheer up! Here we are, waiting for you!” “Oo-oo-oo!” His speed increased, as he went farther away, as if he were growing nervous; and surely he had lost his head for a moment when he put foot on the ground, passing a gap, thinking the enemy far enough behind. The leopard was ready for that, and seized him. Then, in that far corner of the glen, there was silence—the silence of death.

XXVIII [196]
MOTHER’S LOVE AMONG THE MONKEYS

In January 1909 a friend at Pyapon, Burma, told me that, as he was passing through an unfrequented creek near the shore there, between Rangoon and Bassein, the sudden apparition of his steam-launch alarmed a crowd of monkeys. They were on the trees, overhanging the water, and chattering loudly. They hurried away, with leaps and swings, quickly and easily, all but one. He was a very little fellow, and there was a big gap in front of him, too big for him; and so he stood shivering, about to fall. His mother saw his plight, and came back and joined him. To take him was impossible. So she sat beside him; and he pressed close to her and clung to her; and she put one arm around him, and, quietly but with quivering lips, she faced the awful apparition, whistling, splashing, puffing. It passed without hurting her or her son. They suffered nothing but the fright.

[197] ]“Very queer they looked as we came close to them,” thought the men on the boat; but their fear was as natural as that of men who see a lion at large. It is likely, too, that that brown mother-monkey had had losses before; and a mother’s heart to feel them. Perhaps a memory of old sorrows, dimly present yet, as well as something of the sublime instinct which makes humanity at times self-sacrificing and brave, had strengthened her heart enough to let her face the immeasurable dangers of the noisy, unknown monster.

Instead of laughing at her ignorance, think of our own—how little we can ever know of her or her tribe, how utterly undecipherable, mysterious beyond any hieroglyphics, remain the lines upon her face the “multitudinous wrinkled tragedies” upon the parchment of that little brow! We pass each other close enough; but an infinite gulf divides us, a gulf deeper than that in the parable: for there is no speech across it, no signalling, no telegraphy of any kind. No communication whatever is possible between us, any more than if we lived in different solar systems. Only, we can see and admire in her a mother’s love, exactly as we can behold the flashing glories of the kingfisher’s feathers, or hear the merry music of the lark. The world is not a nightmare after all.

XXIX [198]
EXIT THE HUNTER

1. UP TO DATE

Why are there so few heroic tales of our brave boys a-hunting with breechloaders, may be asked. The truth is that, with modern weapons, hunting is as unromantic as work in a slaughter-house.