The Rifle Rangers

by Mayne Reid

The living chain now commenced swinging backwards and forwards, like the pendulum of a clock. The motion was slight at first, but gradually increased, the lowermost monkey striking his hands violently on the earth as he passed the tangent of the oscillating curve. Several others upon the limbs above aided the movement. The absence of branches upon the lower part of the tree, which we have said was a cotton-wood (Populus angulata), enabled them to execute this movement freely.

The oscillation continued to increase until the monkey at the end of the chain was thrown among the branches of a tree on the opposite bank. Here, after two or three vibrations, he clutched a limb and held fast. This movement was executed adroitly, just at the culminating point of the “swing”, in order to save the intermediate links from the violence of a too sudden jerk.

The chain was now fast at both ends, forming a complete suspension-bridge, over which the whole troop, to the number of four or five hundred, passed with the rapidity of thought.

It was one of the most comical sights I ever beheld, to witness the quizzical expression of countenances along that living chain. To see the mothers, too, making the passage, with their tiny infants clinging to their backs, was a sight at once comical and curious.

The monkeys that formed the chain kept up an incessant talking, and, as we fancied, laughing, and frequently they would bite at the legs of the individuals passing over, as if to hurry them on!

The troop was soon on the other side; but how were the animals forming the bridge to get themselves over? This was the question that suggested itself. Manifestly, thought we, by number one letting go his tail. But then the point d’appui on the other side was much lower down, and number one, with half a dozen of his neighbours, would be dashed against the opposite bank, or soused into the water.

Here, then, was a problem, and we waited with some curiosity for its solution.

It was soon solved. A monkey was now seen attaching his tail to the lowest on the bridge; another girdled him in a similar manner, and another, and so on until a dozen more were added to the string. These last were all powerful fellows; and running up to a high limb, they lifted the bridge into a position almost horizontal.

Then a scream from the last monkey of the new formation warned the tail end that all was ready; and the next moment the whole chain was swung over, and landed safely on the opposite bank!

The lowermost links now dropped off to the ground, while the higher ones leaped to the branches and came down by the trunk. The whole troop then scampered off into the chaparral and disappeared.