The same Ælian, indeed, and others, tell us of the ape that was a most skilful charioteer; of the adroitness of another in escaping from cats, when hunted by them on trees in Egypt, by running to the extremity of a bough too slender to bear the cats, and so, taking advantage of its bending, reaching the ground in safety, leaving the cats plantés là, clutching and clinging on as they best might to save themselves from the shock of the recoil; of that renowned and all-accomplished animal, to come to more modern times, the Prægrandem simiam, which Paræus saw in ædibus Ducis Somei, and which so excelled in many arts, that it was named Magister Factotum, but not till after the poor beast’s hands had been cut off to keep it out of mischief—to say nothing of the celebrated coup, dear to diplomatists, of the cat’s paw. Some of our readers, by the way, may not know that this scene which Edwin Landseer has so admirably represented—painted, we would have said, but painting it may not be called, for the coals are live coals, and the yelling cat is held by the imperturbable monkey to a fire that makes one hot to look at it—that this event, so familiar to every schoolboy, is recorded as having actually taken place in the hall of Pope Julius the Second.
But what are these to the clouds of unfortunate adventurers? An ape may generally be considered to be well off if he only loses an eye, like the cheiroped king’s son in the Arabian story, by magical fire.
It is but fair to add a legend evidently intended to convey an impression of the sapience of our friends; not that we are going to enter into the controversy as to whether the Prince of Darkness chose the similitude of an ape as the most appropriate for the temptation of our common mother Eve; we leave that to the initiated: our tale is much more humble in its pretensions.
In “A New History of Ethiopia, being a full and accurate description of the kingdom of Abessinia, vulgarly, though erroneously, called the Empire of Prester John, by the learned Job Ludolphus, author of the Ethiopic Lexicon Made English by I. P. Gent.” (folio, 1862), there is a grand engraving of apes with this superscription:—
“1. Scrambling about the mountains.
“2. Removeing great huge stones to come at the wormes.
“3. Sitting upon ant-hills and devouring the little creatures.
“4. Throwing sand or dust in the eyes of wild beast that come to sett upon them.”
The whole being illustrative of the following edifying piece of information:—
“Of apes there are infinite flocks up and down in the mountains themselves, a thousand and more together: there they leave no stone unturned. If they meet with one that two or three cannot lift, they call for more, and all for the sake of the wormes that lye under; a sort of dyet which they relish exceedingly. They are very greedy after emmets. So that having found an emmet-hill, they presently surround it, and laying their fore-paws with the hollow downward upon the ant-heap, as fast as the emmets creep into their trecherous palmes they lick ’em off with great comfort to their stomachs: and there they will lye till there is not an emmet left. They are also pernicious to fruit and apples, and will destroy whole fields and gardens, unless they be carefully looked after. For they are very cunning, and will never venture in till the return of their spies, which they send always before; who giving information that all things are safe, in they rush with their whole body, and make a quick dispatch. Therefore they go very quiet and silent to their prey; and if their young ones chance to make a noise they chastise them with their fists, but if they find the coast clear, then every one hath a different noise to express his joy. Nor could there be any way to hinder them from further multiplying, but that they fall sometimes into the ruder hands of the wild beasts, which they have no way to avoid, but by a timely flight or creeping into the clefts of the rocks. If they find no safety in flight, they make a virtue of necessity, stand their ground, and filling their paws full of dust or sand, fling it full in the eyes of their assailant, and then to their heels again.”