ZOOLOGY 359 



managed to escape from confinement, would make for the chimpanzee's 

 quarters and attempt to rob him of his food. 



During my stay in the Uganda Protectorate the place of theatres, 

 concerts, exhibitions, and all the ])leasant dissipations of our civilised 

 existence was taken hv zoological studies, which, together with painting, 

 were my only distractions. I was greatly interested in keeping a large 

 menagerie. ]Many of the creatures, especially the larger in size, remain 

 still at my headquarters at Entebbe; others, the monkeys especially, 

 travelled about witli me, and enlivened the caravan with their jiranks. It 

 amused us, amongst other things, to name the baboons and monkeys with 

 distinctive appellations, which they soon came to realise as quickly as a dog 

 does. The male monkeys were usually given Muhammadan names, partly 

 by the ]Muhammadan coast porters, and partly in humorous raillery by the 

 Europeans. On the other hand, the female simians were called by English 

 names of a more or less incongruous kind, largely taken from the heroines 

 of the works of fiction circulating in the camp. Amongst our baboons was 

 Eleanor ]\Ialtravers, from the Semliki Valley, on the Congo Free State 

 boundary. She belonged to a species of baboon difficult to classify,* but offer- 

 ing considerable resemblance to the chakma-like form which I have observed 

 in the eastern part of the Protectorate. A male of this chakma-like type had 

 been captured by us near Xaivasha when a tiny little fellow, and seemed to 

 be indistinguishable from Eleanor in appearance, though nearly 400 miles 

 separated their birthplaces. The male was called Nassur, and Nassur and 

 Eleanor, for aught I know, are living still as amusing bandits at Entebbe. 



Baboons possess a quite half-human intelligence, and though sometimes 

 inconvenient in their audacious mischief, they are most interesting pets to 

 keep and study ; and it is only by thus having them to live with one for 

 years that one realises how much their average untrained intelligence is 

 above that of the ordinary beast, and how distinct an a})proach the baboon 

 makes towards man. Personally, I believe that the baboon comes very 

 near being an actual stage in man's ascent, the modern African baboon 

 having no doubt divei'ged a little from the ancestral types whence man 

 ascended; but, with the sole exception of their exaggeration of muzzle, they 

 undoubtedly approximate in form to that type — the grandparents, so to 

 speak, of man, the stage immediately preceding the anthropoid ape and 

 succeeding the mere long-tailed monkey. The ancient Egyptians, if their 

 sculptures and paintings are to be taken as accurate, not only tamed the 

 baboon of Nubia, but trained it to be a useful animal in gathering fruits and 

 performing other services. It is a pity that this art should have been lost. 

 I know from personal experience that it is extremely easy to tame baboons, 

 but very difficult to train them to real obedience, and anything like work is 



* Papio doguera (?). 



