This is a very celebrated kind, and it has made its mark in the history of science and of the world. It was dissected by Galen; it took part in the great siege of Gibraltar, and is one of the most popular of the companions of the organ-grinder. Moreover, as will be noticed further on, it is an animal which may be classified with the Cynocephali, or true Baboons, to be described in the next chapter, without doing much violence to science.
It is called Magot by the French, and it is the Pithecus of that great old physician, Galen, who, when he could not learn anatomy by dissecting the human body, which was not allowed, investigated that of the Tail-less Ape. Born at Pergamo, about the year A.D. 131, Galen studied literature and then anatomy when young; and visiting Alexandria, was greatly delighted with being permitted to examine a human skeleton there, and subsequently to dissect a robber, who had remained without burial. Seeing that anatomy and physiology were the very foundations of medical practice, and noticing the resemblances of man and the Ape, he set to work and wrote largely on anatomy, but made the Ape his model. He was far before his age, and, therefore, abominable in the eyes of the antiquated practitioners; so his career as a physician in Rome was short. Nevertheless, his voluminous works lasted longer than his critics, and influenced the rise of medical science and the comfort and lives of mankind for many centuries. His anatomy was wrong, because it was that of the Ape and not of man; but, nevertheless, so strongly were the medical anatomists—who never dissected but only read—impressed with the correctness of his so-called human anatomy, that when Vesalius did dissect men and describe them, he was pooh-poohed by the faculty as of no authority whatever. Just as Oxford opposed the learning of Greek, so the first physician of Henry IV. of France decided against human anatomy and Vesalius; but Greek and Vesalius triumphed after a while.
Nevertheless, humanity for many centuries was under a deep obligation to the Magot, inasmuch as surgery, as applied to man, was founded upon observations on the construction of the Ape.
Strabo knew that North Africa was peopled by the Tail-less Ape, or Pithecus; and he asserts that Posidonius, on going from Cadiz to Italy by sea, stopped in Lybia (the present Barbary), and saw large numbers of these Apes in the forests, which came down close to the water side.
PIG-TAILED MACAQUE.
The Magot is about the size of a middle-sized Dog, and measures from two to two and a half feet in length. The upper parts of the body and outsides of the limbs are of a light yellowish-brown colour, which is deeper on the head and round the cheeks; the under parts are whitish; and the face, ears, and other naked and hairless parts are flesh-coloured. The bald face, rather pale in tint, is long and wrinkled, and it is this which gives an old look to them, even when they are young. It is a robust animal when full grown, and has then deeply-set eyes, which are rather close together, and a projecting brow. The erect posture can be maintained for a short time, but it is not natural to it; on the contrary, it moves on all-fours quickly, jumps and climbs with great agility, scampering over broken ground or getting into the trees equally well. It squats on its haunches, and often sleeps with the head hanging down over the chest. Always alert and full of mischief, they assemble in troops, especially on the flanks of the Atlas range, place their scouts on trees, like so many Crows, and despoil the fruit plantations and gardens. In this they resemble the Baboons, whose marauding expeditions will be noticed further on.
This is the Monkey which is tolerably common on the Rock of Gibraltar; and they were there before the sea wore away the land and formed the Strait. They are essentially Rock Apes, and like trees near rocks, and, therefore, they are not found in desert tracts or in deep woods. Formerly the Rock of Gibraltar was no doubt continuous with the range of hills far over the sea to the south, and there the Magot plundered (or, rather, took what Nature let him take; for man had not then come to disturb him) the fruit of Kabylia, Algiers, and Morocco. People have invented many methods by which the Magots could come from Barbary on to the Rock of Gibraltar: some believe in a subterranean passage, which is said still to enable the occasional visits of African relations to their European kindred; and others, more practically inclined, believe that the Apes came over on board ship by stealth. Certain it is that the strong current through the Straits prevents anything from drifting from one side of them to the other. Some years since, some caves were opened and carefully examined in the Rock of Gibraltar, and bones were found of kinds of Hyænas, of Rhinoceros, and of Elephants, all comparable with those still living on the African Continent. Now, such animals could not at the present time live on the Rock, but they might have done so when it was part of a country extending right away to Africa. Their bones were washed into valleys amongst the hills, and then they fell into deep fissures and became preserved; and this could only have taken place when there was much water in the neighbourhood; and for there to be much water, the whole aspect of the country would have to be changed—to be extended far and wide where the sea now is.
MAGOT.