“the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.”
But to return to Le Vaillant’s entertaining narrative.
“To tear up these roots, Kees pursued a very ingenious method, which afforded me much amusement. He laid hold of the tuft of leaves with his teeth; and pressing his fore paws firmly against the earth, and drawing his head backwards, the root generally followed: when this method, which required considerable force, did not succeed, he seized the tuft as before, as close to the earth as he could; then throwing his heels over his head, the root always yielded to the jerk which he gave it. In our marches, when he found himself tired, he got upon the back of one of my dogs, which had the complaisance to carry him for whole hours together: one only, which was larger and stronger than the rest, ought to have served him for this purpose; but the cunning animal well knew how to avoid this drudgery. The moment he perceived Kees on his shoulders he remained motionless, and suffered the caravan to pass on, without ever stirring from the spot. The timorous Kees still persisted; but as soon as he began to lose sight of us he was obliged to dismount, and he and the dog ran with all their might to overtake us. For fear of being surprised, the dog dexterously suffered him to get before him, and watched him with great attention. In short, he had acquired an ascendency over my whole pack, for which he was perhaps indebted to the superiority of his instinct; for among animals, as among men, address often gets the better of strength. While at his meals Kees could not endure guests; if any of the dogs approached too near to him at that time, he gave them a hearty blow, which these poltroons never returned, but scampered away as fast as they could.
“It appeared to me extremely singular, and I could not account for it, that, next to the serpent, the animal which he most dreaded was one of his own species: whether it was that he was sensible that his being tamed had deprived him of great part of his faculties, and that fear had got possession of his senses, or that he was jealous and dreaded a rivalry in my friendship. It would have been very easy for me to catch wild ones and tame them; but I never thought of it. I had given Kees a place in my heart which no other after him could occupy; and I sufficiently testified how far he might depend on my constancy. Sometimes he heard others of the same species making a noise in the mountains; and, notwithstanding his terror, he thought proper, I know not for what reason, to reply to them. When they heard his voice they approached: but as soon as he perceived any of them he fled with horrible cries; and, running between our legs, implored the protection of everybody, while his limbs quivered through fear. We found it no easy matter to calm him; but he gradually resumed, after some time, his natural tranquillity. He was very much addicted to thieving, a fault common to almost all domestic animals; but in Kees it became a talent, the ingenious efforts of which I admired. Notwithstanding all the correction bestowed upon him by my people, who took the matter seriously, he was never amended. He knew perfectly well how to untie the ropes of a basket, to take provisions from it, and, above all, milk, of which he was remarkably fond: more than once he has made me go without any. I often beat him pretty severely myself; but, when he escaped from me, he did not appear at my tent till towards night.”
“Milk in baskets!” why, truly, the term “basket” as applied to a vessel for holding milk appears to require some explanation; but it was really carried in baskets woven by the Gonaquas, of reeds, so delicate and so close in texture that they might be employed in carrying water or any liquid. The abstraction of the milk, &c., we consider as a kind of set-off against the appropriation of Kees’s favourite root by his master.
The pertinacious way in which Kees bestrode Le Vaillant’s dogs will recall to the remembrance of some a monkey that was, and perhaps still is, riding about London, in hat and feather, with garments to match, upon a great dog, with the usual accompaniments of hand-organ and Pan’s pipe. Upon these occasions the monkey evidently felt proud of his commanding position; but ever and anon we have seen him suffer from one of those sad reverses of fortune to which the greatest amongst us are subject. In the midst of the performance, while the organ and pipe are playing, and the monkey has it all his own way, and, elevated with the grandeur that surrounds him, is looking rather aristocratically at the admiring crowd, some good-natured but unlucky boy throws the dog a bit of cake, in his zeal to pick up which the latter lowers his head and shoulders so suddenly as infallibly to pitch his rider over his head. We have thought more than once that there was a sly look about the dog as he regarded the unseated monkey, utterly confounded by his downfall and the accompanying shouts of laughter from the bystanders.
We have already stated that the South American monkeys are all blessed with tails, but they are deprived of those brilliant blue and red callosities which give so much splendour to the integuments of many of the Old World family, and recall sometimes a part of the costume of a certain unearthly pedestrian; for his femoral habiliments