THE PIG-TAILED BABOON, OR CHACMA.[63]
The Hottentots are familiar with one of the largest kinds of the Baboons, which reaches the size of an English Mastiff, and has superior strength, and they call it the T’chackamma, which has been reduced by Europeans to the “Chacma.” The colonists of the Cape of Good Hope districts called it the Black Ape, and then, from some fanciful resemblance of its tail to that of a Pig, the creature was dignified with the name porcarius.
The Chacmas are found in great troops, and they behave very much after the manner of the other large Baboons, their strength rendering them a terror to the Dogs of the colonists. In ascending the kloofs, or passes, in the mountains of South Africa, which are frequently steep, narrow, and dangerous, travellers often disturb great troops of these animals, which have been sunning themselves on the rocks. If not attacked they scamper up the sides of the mountains yelling and screaming. They resent being fired upon by rolling down stones.
The Chacma has a fine black tail, which is rather more than half the length of the body, and it has a tuft of long black hair at its tip. It is carried like that of the other long-tailed Baboons, being curved upwards at first, and then falling down straight. Nearly all the fur of the body is a uniform dark brown, almost black, mixed throughout with a dark green shade. It is long and shaggy, particularly on the neck and shoulders of the males. If a solitary hair be pulled out, it will be found to be very curiously ornamented. It has a root, like all hairs, springing from a little pimple under the scarf-skin, and its colour is at first of a light grey colour. Then it is marked with wide rings of colour, which are perfectly distinct, and they are alternately black and dark green, but sometimes they are intermixed with a few of a lighter or yellowish shade. The face and ears are naked, as are also the palms and soles, and there are small whiskers, grey in colour and brushed backwards. Naked as are the face, ears, and hands, the skin is of a very dark violet-blue colour, with a pale ring surrounding each eye. Strange to say, the upper eyelids are white.
In the adult the muzzle is very long in comparison with the skull, which is greatly flattened and contracted; but in the young, the size of the nose is not so apparent, and the head is rounder, and the brain case is larger in proportion. As age comes on, the brain is not increased in size correspondingly with the face.
There is no doubt that the old Baboons have a very fine sense of smelling, their noses are large, and the sentient surface is great; moreover, this gift has been tested and used to the advantage of many a wanderer and settler in the districts where water is scarce at the surface, but plentiful here and there, resting on rocks which are covered with sand or soil. The Baboon can find out water when even the Bushmen are quite at fault, and when other animals are dying of thirst. When a manageable Baboon is at hand, and people are in a dreary district searching for water, they lead him in the required direction suffering from thirst, and give him his liberty. He moves over the ground quickly, smelling here and there, or gallops with extended nostrils, now turning in one direction and now in another, quartering out his ground like a Dog. Sooner or later he stops and begins to dig with his hands, and then the people come up, and water is almost always found, and in quantity.
PIG-TAILED BABOON.
Although the young Chacmas are playful enough, and are full of nonsense and fun in captivity, they, like all their kindred Baboons, become surly, ferocious, and unsafe as they grow old and have their bodies perfectly developed to the perfection of baboonism. That is to say, when the face, jaws, and teeth become as large as they ever will be, and the body becomes as short and as muscular as possible. They then scowl at the visitor, and grind and show their great teeth at the slightest provocation, grumbling and growling also, and in fact, to quote the words of a very precise naturalist, “the fierceness and brutality of their character and manners correspond with the expression of their physiognomy.” Nevertheless, they are amenable to soft influences. In spite of their savage and untamable disposition, they are influenced by that most potent of all attractions. They are, in the language of the writer just quoted, “agitated by the passion of love or jealousy. In captivity they are thrown into the greatest agitation at the appearance of young females”—not females of the Baboon tribe, but those who, under all circumstances, are now called ladies. “It is a common practice,” continues the writer, “among itinerant showmen, to excite the natural jealousy of these Baboons by caressing or offering to kiss the young females who resort to their exhibitions, and the sight never fails to excite in these animals a degree of rage bordering on frenzy. On one occasion a large Baboon of this species escaped from his place of confinement in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and far from showing any disposition to return to his cage, severely wounded two or three of his keepers who attempted to recapture him. After many ineffectual attempts to induce him to return quietly, they at length hit upon a plan which was successful. There was a small grated window at the back part of the den, at which one of the keepers appeared, in company with the daughter of the superintendent, whom he appeared to kiss and caress within view of the animal. No sooner did the Baboon witness this familiarity, than he flew into the cage with the greatest fury, and endeavoured to unfasten the grating of the window which separated him from the object of his jealousy. Whilst employed in this vain attempt, the keepers took the opportunity of fastening the door, and securing him once more in his place of confinement. Nor is this a solitary instance of the influence which women can exert over the passions of these savage animals. It is said that, generally untractable and incorrigible whilst under the management of men, it usually happens that Baboons are most effectually tamed and led to even more than ordinary obedience in the hands of women, whose attentions they often repay with gratitude and affection.”
There is another side to the picture, however, and probably about as true. “Travellers sometimes speak of the danger which women run who reside in the vicinity of the situation which these animals inhabit, and affirm that the negresses on the coast of Guinea are occasionally kidnapped by the Baboons; we are even assured that certain of those women have lived among the Baboons for many years, and that they were prevented from escaping by being shut up in caves in the mountains, where, however, they were plentifully fed, and in other respects treated with great kindness! It is to be observed, however,” writes this author, “that these accounts rest upon authority which is by no means unexceptionable; credible and well-informed modern travellers do not relate them, and even their older and more credulous predecessors give them only from hearsay.”