ZOOLOGY" ;5.V.) 



managed to escape from confinement, would make fur tin- cliiinjianzee's 

 quarters and attempt to rob him of his food. 



During my stay in the I'gaiKhi Protectorate the place of theatres, 

 concerts, exhibitions, and all the pleasant dissipations of our civilised 

 existence was taken by 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 lieadquarters at Entebbe; others, tlie monkeys especially, 

 travelled about with me, and enlivened the caravan wit h 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 b}^ English 

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

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

 Eleanor Maltravers, from the Semliki Valley, on the ('ongo PVee State 

 boundary. 8he belonged to a species of baboon difficult to clas.sify,* but offer- 

 ing considerable resemblance to the chakma-like form which [ 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 l)irthplaces. The luale 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 

 keej) and study ; and it is only by thus having them to live witli one for 

 years that one realises how much their average untrained intelligence is 

 above that of the ordinary beast, and how distinct an approach 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 diverged 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 Xubia, 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 do(juera (?). 



