VILLAGE IN NUBIA.
Mansfield Parkyns asserts that the cleverness of these Baboons depends in some measure upon their power of reason, and not entirely on that instinct with which all animals are endowed, and which serves them only to procure the necessaries of life and to defend themselves against their enemies. In proof he relates an incident, of which he was an eye-witness. “At Khartûm, the capital of the provinces of Upper Nubia, I saw a man showing a large male and two females of this breed, who performed several clever tricks at his command. I entered into conversation with him as to their sagacity, the mode of teaching them, and various other topics relating to them. Speaking of his male Monkey, he said that he was the most dexterous thief imaginable, and that every time he was exhibited he stole dates and other provisions sufficient for his food for the day. In proof of this he begged me to watch him for a few minutes. I did so, and presently the keeper led him to a spot where a date-seller was sitting on the ground with his basket beside him. Here his master put him through his evolutions, and although I could perceive that the Monkey had an eye to the fruit, yet so completely did he disguise his intentions, that no careless observer would have noticed it. He did not at first appear to care about approaching the basket, but gradually brought himself nearer and nearer, till at last he got quite close to the owner. In the middle of one of his feats he suddenly started up from the ground on which he was lying stretched out like a corpse, and uttering a cry as if in pain or rage, fixed his eyes full on the face of the date-seller, and then, without moving the rest of his body, stole as many dates as he could hold in one of his hind hands. The date man, being stared out of countenance, and his attention diverted by this extraordinary movement, knew nothing about the theft till a bystander told him of it, and then he joined heartily in the laugh that was raised against him. The Monkey having very adroitly popped the fruit into his cheek-pouches, had moved off a few yards, when a boy in the crowd round him pulled him sharply by the tail. Conscience-stricken, he fancied that it had been done in revenge by the date-seller whom he had robbed; and so, passing close by the true offender and behind the legs of two or three others, he fell on the unfortunate fruiterer, and would no doubt have bitten him severely, but for the interference of his master, who came to the rescue.”
Although so clever, the Hamadryas is much more deficient in brain than the higher Apes, the Orang for instance. It is not so much developed in front, and the whole mass is not so high, but still it projects well over the little brain, or cerebellum. The convolutions are simpler, and although all the principal markings noticed even in man are present, still the smaller ones, and those which belong to structures which add to the superficial extent of the organ, are wanting. The ventricles and the posterior horn and its eminences are present, as is also that particularly monkey development, the fissure, which is called the external perpendicular.
Evidently the compressed form of the skull, which seems as if it had been pressed far above over the forehead, has much to do with the small bulk of the front of the brain, and this is also diminished by the projection of the orbits into the brain-case. The skull is certainly an ugly thing to look at, and is only surpassed by that of the full-grown Mandrill in want of elegance, of outline, and smooth configuration. The forehead and top of the skull are broad and flat, and the whole brain-case appears to slope off at the sides of the orbits, and then projects but little there, the broadest part of the skull being at the cheek-bone. The orbits are oblique, that is to say, they look forwards and outwards, and they are tolerably widely open. There is a great roundness and swelling of the upper jaw-bone from the cheek-bone to the long nasal bones, and the front jaw-bone (the pre-maxillary) is short and projecting. The shape of the skull resembles that of the Sphinx Baboon.
Their name, given to them by the naturalist, is as great a puzzle as are many others devoted to animals, for what possible connection can there be between the Hamadryads, the nymphs whose birth, life, and death were mysteriously united with the corresponding epochs in the growth of the oak-tree, and a most un-nymphlike creature which likes rocks, holes, and dens, but who neither cares for oaks nor acorns?
THE GELADA BABOON.[62]
These Baboons are quite as clever as the great Dog-faced kind, which has been immortalised by the ancient Egyptians, and every now and then troops of both come in contact and have great fights. The Gelada Baboon, with its long tail tufted at the end, and black limbs, has very long hair on its upper parts of a pale brown colour. This covers the head where there is a dark line from the forehead backwards, and also the shoulders and rump. This Baboon, moreover, has the nostrils opening high up in the face, and not close to the end of the upper jaw, as in the Hamadryas. Differing thus from the Hamadryas Baboons, each troop soon knows its comrades. Occasionally, when the fields are ripe with grain, the Geladas, perched upon their mountain homes, see the glowing and varied colours of the vegetation, and long for the luxuries of the plains. They descend and sometimes rob the farmers with impunity, and return after having committed a vast amount of mischief. But it happens that the great Dog-faced troops are out on the same errand, and the two sets of thieves speedily disagree. A fight ensues, and the Geladas roll down large stones, which the others try to avoid, and then they all rush together to close quarters, making a great uproar, and fighting with great fury. Some of these gallant Geladas had the audacity to stop a Serene Highness in his travels in Abyssinia, and very effectually, for some hours. A Duke of Coburg-Gotha was in a caravan which had to traverse the pass of Mensa, in Abyssinia, and as there were some of the Baboons perched in numbers on the sides of the high rocky ravine, some of the Europeans, who of course must try and kill something as often as possible, fired upon them. The Baboons retaliated in a most military manner, by rolling down stones in such quantity and of such a size that not only had the firing party to retire, but the passage of the caravan was stopped. They positively closed the pass against all comers for some time.
Darwin tells a laughable anecdote of a Baboon, but does not mention the kind. He saw in the Zoological Gardens a Baboon who always got in a furious rage when his keeper took out a letter or book and read it aloud to him; and his rage was so violent that, as Mr. Darwin witnessed, on one occasion he bit his own leg till the blood flowed.