“Monkeys, then,” replied the latter, waking up, and laughing at his companion.
“Thar’s a good grist on ’em, then, I reckin,” said Lincoln, throwing himself back unconcernedly.
“They are coming towards the stream. They will most likely cross by the rocks yonder,” observed Raoul.
“How?—swim it?” I asked. “It is a torrent there.”
“Oh, no!” answered the Frenchman; “monkeys would rather go into fire than water. If they cannot leap the stream, they’ll bridge it.”
“Bridge it! and how?”
“Stop a moment, Captain; you shall see.”
The half-human voices now sounded nearer, and we could perceive that the animals were approaching the spot where we lay. Presently they appeared upon the opposite bank, headed by an old grey-bearded chieftain, and officered like a regiment of soldiers.
They were, as Raoul had stated, the araguatoes (Simia ursina) of the tribe of “alouattes,” or “howlers.” They were of that species known as “monos colorados” (red monkeys). They were about the size of foxhounds, though there was a difference in this respect between the males and females. Many of the latter were mothers, and carried their human-like infants upon their shoulders as they marched along, or, squatted upon their hams, tenderly caressed them, fondling and pressing them against their mammas. Both males and females were of a tawny-red or lion-colour; both had long beards, and the hair upon their bodies was coarse and shaggy. Their tails were, each of them, three feet in length; and the absence of hair on the under side of these, with the hard, callous appearance of the cuticle, showed that these appendages were extremely prehensile. In fact, this was apparent from the manner in which the young “held on” to their mothers; for they appeared to retain their difficult seats as much by the grasp of their tails as by their arms and hands.
On reaching the bank of the “arroyo” the whole troop came to a sudden halt. One—an aide-de-camp, or chief pioneer, perhaps—ran forward upon a projecting rock; and, after looking across the stream, as if calculating its width, and then carefully examining the trees overhead, he scampered back to the troop, and appeared to communicate with the leader. The latter uttered a cry—evidently a command—which was answered by many individuals in the band, and these instantly made their appearance in front, and running forward upon the bank of the stream, collected around the trunk of a tall cotton-wood that grew over the narrowest part of the arroyo. After uttering a chorus of discordant cries, twenty or thirty of them were seen to scamper up the trunk of the cotton-wood. On reaching a high point, the foremost—a strong fellow—ran out upon a limb, and, taking several turns of his tail around it, slipped off and hung head downwards. The next on the limb—also a stout one—climbed down the body of the first, and, whipping his tail tightly around the neck and fore-arm of the latter, dropped off in his turn, and hung head down. The third repeated this manoeuvre upon the second, and the fourth upon the third, and so on, until the last one upon the string rested his fore-paws upon the ground.