It was noticed and described by Sir Stamford Raffles as a native of Sumatra, where it is frequently seen in the neighbourhood of Bencoolen. It has a long and slender body, very long hind-legs, and the tail end is higher than the shoulders in walking. The fore-legs are short, and the tail is very long, and exceeds thirty inches in length, and the head is small and wonderfully straight in the forehead and face.
The colours of this Simpai are very different to those of the great Apes already mentioned. Here variety of colour replaces the sameness of the tints of the large Anthropomorpha. First, there is a long crest of black hair on the top of the head, which passes slightly round the face close. On the cheeks there is a tuft of fawn-coloured hairs, which graduate into white. The forehead is of a light fawn-colour, and the face is naked, slightly wrinkled, and of a blue tint. The under parts of the body are very white, and on the back and neck the colour is bright yellow and red. The palms and soles are black, the thumbs are small, and the callosities are large.
THE NEGRO MONKEY.[27]
This is, as the name implies, a black Monkey. It is intensely black, except underneath, and at the root of the tail, where there is a grey tint. The paws are long, delicate, and silky, and become slightly grey on the head and back with old age. Like most black things, it leads a troubled life, being chased and hunted, not, however, in this instance so much for amusement as for the pretty black fur. They live in great troops, in the Javanese forests, and sometimes fifty or more individuals associate together. They make rude nests in trees, and are extremely timid, making off with great haste if they are disturbed. A long series of generations has been chased and killed by the natives of Java, and therefore the present Negro Monkeys are exceedingly shy, and bolt from the face of man at once. And yet, although thus timid and anxious to get out of the way, they have the reputation of being dangerous, and really unwittingly they may be so. On the approach of men they utter loud screams, and scamper off amongst the trees, helter-skelter. Now in doing this, they break dead branches off, and sometimes a large fruit or nut comes tumbling down some score or two of feet. These are supposed to be thrown by the Monkeys, but such is not the case. Having this bad character, the “Negroes” are cudgelled with sticks, and killed in numbers very cruelly. Their pretty fur is much prized, and the chiefs of the country arrange the hunting parties, treating the Monkeys really as beasts of the field. The skins are prepared by a simple process which the natives have learned from Europeans; and they conduct it with great skill. It affords a fur of a jet-black colour, covered with long silky hairs, which is used by the natives and Europeans there in ornamenting riding saddlery and in military decorations.
When young, they are of a brown or reddish tint, and thin grey tints appear preceding the intense black; they then eat buds and shoots and tender leaves, but in adult age they are fruit consumers. When in captivity they are sullen and morose, and they will remain sulky for many months. This the natives know, and therefore they never try to tame them, or to have them in their houses. In their shape they resemble the last Monkey described, and their hind limbs are very long, their haunches being high.
NEGRO MONKEY.
They are rather more than two feet long in the body, and the neck appears short; both shoulders and chest are short and largely made. The tail is as long as the body and head, and is often slightly tufted at the end. A mop of hair surrounds the face, and the hairs are long and closely pressed, and quite conceal the forehead. The nose is peculiar, for the bones of it are ridged, as it were, and the skin is drawn tight over the open nostril (nares), so that there is no soft nose. A very considerable space exists between the nostrils and the mouth, and the lips are small and thin.
THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY.[28]
Of all the remarkable oddities of Nature amongst the many-shaped Monkeys, the Long-nosed or Proboscis-carrier stands pre-eminent. In fact, there is nothing in human or ape nature like the face of one particular Long-tailed Semnopithecus from Borneo. Monkeys have flat noses as a rule, some have a ridge and a little fleshy mass in which the nostrils end; others, like the Baboon, have dog-like noses, and the Americans have wide noses, the nostrils opening well at the sides. In man there is the Roman nose, the pug, the straight, the flat, the broken, the long with a large end, and the short with a turn up, but the Nasalis Monkey stands alone amongst the Primates with a nose of vast proportions, which projects far in advance of the mouth, and whose nostrils open underneath. It grows with age, and commences as a small “turn up,” which still is more fleshy and longer than the nose of any Monkey. The newly-born Nose Monkey is a most extraordinary object, reminding the critical eye of many youths of weak constitution and defective brains. Its hair is wonderfully parted down the middle, and brushed by Dame Nature down the sides of the head and a little backwards; the whiskers take the latter direction, and the ears stand out just behind them. It has drooping eyelids, a longish upper lip, with just a little sign of coming hair, and then there is the funny nose, the upper part like a boy’s, but the end seems to have been pulled out and turned up, so that the nostrils are quite at the tip. The face has a tinge of blue about it, and the animal, even when old enough to be sitting on a tree, looks sad and melancholy.