JUDGMENT-SCENE FROM AN EGYPTIAN MONUMENT.
In a “New History of Ethiopia, being a full and accurate description of the Kingdom of Abyssinia, vulgarly” (writes Broderip), “though erroneously, called the Empire of Prester John, by the learned Job Ludolphus” (1682), there is a grand engraving of Apes, with this superscription:—
“1. Scrambling about the mountains.
2. Remoeving great huge stones to come at the wormes.
3. Sitting upon Ant-hills and devouring the little creatures.
4. Throwing sand or dust in the eyes of wild beastes that came to sett upon them.”
The following is illustrated by the above:—
“Of Apes there are infinite flocks up and down in the mountains thereabout, a thousand and more together: there they leave no stone unturned. If they meet with one that two or three cannot lift, they call for more, and all for the sake of the wormes that lye under: a sort of dyet which they relish exceedingly. They are very greedy after Emmets; so that having found an Emmet-hill, they presently surround it, and laying their fore paws with the hollow downward upon the Ant-heap, as fast as the Emmets creep into their trecherous palmes, they lick them off with great comfort into their stomachs; and there they will lye til there is not an Emmet left. They are also pernicious to fruit and apples, and will destroy whole fields and gardens unless they be carefully looked after. For they are very cunning, and will never venture in till the return of their spies, which they send always before, and who, giving information that all things are safe, in they rush with their whole body, and make a quick dispatch. Therefore they go very quiet and silent to their prey, and if their young ones chance make a noise, they chastise them with their fists, but if they find the coast clear, then every one has a different noise to express his joy. Nor could there he any way to hinder them from further multiplying, but that they fall sometimes into the ruder hands of the wild beasts, which they have no other way to avoid but by a timely flight, or creeping into the clefts of the rocks. If they find no safety in flight, they make a virtue of necessity, stand their ground, and filling their paws full of dust or sand, fling it full in the eyes of their assailant, and take to their heels again.”
It will be seen that there is much truth and a great deal of romance in this narrative.
BABOONS UPON AN ANT-HILL. (From Job Ludolphus, 1682.)
The Baboons have had their name given by the Dutch to a plant. The “Babianer,” which botanists have turned into the genus Babiana, is a common group of plants which is found in South Africa.