Around this hideous tribunal, and ranged in triple and quadruple circles, I noticed a crowd of apes of different kinds, but all of the very worst species, and all, moreover, clad, if one can call it clad, or adorned, if one can call it adorned, with some portion of the costume of an English officer, either of the army or navy. One had, for instance, a hat splendidly got up, with a most superb plume of feathers, but he had no red coat to set it off with; another had a red coat, but no trousers; a third, on the contrary, had white trousers, but neither red coat nor belt; a fourth had a belt and nothing else; a fifth was distinguished only by a pair of white gloves, in which he placed sometimes his hands, and sometimes his feet, or rather what represent feet in an ape; a sixth had passed his arms through the sleeves of a midshipman’s blue jacket, but with so little good luck, that the garment was hind-part before; another wore an enormous gorget, which made him carry his head in the air like a tambour major; whilst his neighbour, more favoured by fortune, or perhaps holding a higher rank, for I was of course ignorant of the precise significance of the various military trappings worn by these creatures with a gravity which at that moment astonished me a hundred times more than the ordinary extravagances of their fellows; whilst his neighbour, as I was saying, wore golden epaulettes on a cavalry colonel’s coat. And this costume would not have become him so very badly, had it not been much too large for him, and capable, indeed, of containing at least half-a-dozen colonels of his particular bulk. A sort of finish was given to his uniform by a pair of white gloves and a military sash with silk and gold fringe. If no one of these apes displayed on his own person a complete example of military costume, many at least among them exhibited special portions of it, and I should state that all were armed with a large sabre or a sword.
I should certainly fall far short of the truth if I attempted to describe my impressions at the sight of this insulting burlesque of one of the most honourable of professions—at the sight of these masquerade officers, every one of whom trailed after him a tail which looked all the more ludicrous, peeping out as it did from under his long coat—at the sight of those generals who amused themselves with minute investigations of the heads of their colleagues, not, however, for phrenological purposes, whilst their colleagues considerately rendered them the same service.
At this moment a frightful guttural cry burst forth from the breast of the big baboon who occupied the president’s place, and all those incongruities on which I had been speculating were in an instant forgotten. There was silence for some minutes, and I endeavoured to profit by it by putting my ideas—fearfully strained by all that I had seen—a little in order. But the effort was a useless one. I asked myself to no purpose for an explanation of the strange society assembled before me; I knew well enough that I was not dreaming, like I was the day before, when I fancied myself about to be assassinated by the two ourang-outangs.
It was not the order which I found reigning among these numerous apes assembled, as I fancied them to be, in court-martial, that caused me the most astonishment, since I remembered what that illustrious naturalist, Marcgrave, says—it was the sight of these hats on their brainless heads, these coats on their ridiculous backs, that awakened in me the greatest surprise; for how was it possible to account for the noble military uniform being prostituted to such base uses as these?
While he was speaking, these unfortunate wretches trembled all over, from head to foot.—[Page 63.]
“Every day,” observes Marcgrave in his natural history, “morning and evening, the siamangs assemble in the woods. One among them takes up his position on some rising ground, and makes a sign to the others to seat themselves around him. When he sees that they are all properly placed, he commences speaking so loud and fast that at a distance a person would imagine they were all crying out together. Yet only one among them is speaking; the others preserve the most perfect silence. When the speaker has finished, he makes a sign with his hand for the others to reply to him, whereupon, at the same instant, they all commence shouting out together, creating, as may be supposed, the most perfect din until, by another sign with his hand, the ape who opened the discussion commands them to silence. In a moment they obey him, and are silent as death. The first one then resumes his speech, and it is only after having listened to him most attentively to the end of his oration that they take steps to break up the assembly.”
The president of the conclave, the big baboon, decked out in the admiral’s or general’s hat, by a single movement of his hand, ordered the advance of twenty apes, who, I observed, were securely bound with ropes made of some fibrous bark. When they were ranged before him like so many criminals, he addressed them in a succession of cries similar to those which I had just heard, but modulated in some degree, as though intended to give expression to certain positive ideas. While he was speaking, these unfortunate wretches trembled all over, from head to foot, and no sooner had he concluded, than, apparently driven to desperation, they endeavoured to escape. Vain attempt! Other apes, armed with knotty bamboos, which they did not hesitate to use, guarded every outlet.
I was not long in discovering that these apes, on whom the assembly were evidently sitting in judgment, belonged to the same species as my unfortunate victim of the previous day. They were vervets, and were distinguished from their judges by their more delicately-shaped limbs, their more intelligent-looking heads, and, above all, by a certain air of goodness and amiability, which was no doubt a crime in the eyes of those by whom they had just been condemned.
And what frightful-looking fellows were their judges, who formed what may be styled the supreme court of the big baboon! How they sought to read beforehand in their master’s eyes the opinion which they would be permitted to hold! Although some among them were already bald, and others displayed the white hair of old age, that natural sign of prudence and badge of respect, they did not the less rival their fellows in obsequiousness towards their master. If he chanced to utter a cry, they were the apes that, in the fullness of their sympathy, cried the loudest. If he scratched his thigh, in a moment of deep thought, they hastened to almost flay their legs by tearing at them with their claws.