252 STAY-AT-HOME TRAVELLING. 



rode in state on a great white dog, and always went through his 

 performance for the special behoof of us youngsters in front of 

 the parlour window. Ah ! what a monkey that was ! there are 

 no such monkeys now-a-days. How he danced, and waved 

 about his plumed cap, and played on a tambourine, and fought 

 his master with a sword, and fired off a pistol ; and how we all 

 laughed when the sly old dog would make a snap at a piece of 

 bread pitched to him, and tumble off the Monkey from his back 

 in the middle of the performance ! But where is that Monkey 

 now? and the organ-man? and the old dog, too? They are all 

 gone. They have been their last round, have finished their last 

 performance, put aside organ, tambourine, frock, and feathered 

 cap, and quitted the scene long ago for ever. 



Italian organ-men with trained Monkeys, travelling mena- 

 geries with well-stocked Monkey-cages, and zoological gardens 

 with commodious and nicely kept Monkey-houses, are all very 

 well ; but properly to appreciate the Monkeys, one has need to 

 see them in their own proper homes, gambolling in merry troops 

 among the wide-spreading branches and the dense foliage of tropic 

 woods, where the peculiarities of their structure beautifully 

 harmonize with the conditions by which they are surrounded. 

 We have never seen them thus ourselves yet ; but of course we 

 mean to do so that is, when we have accomplished a few other 

 little projects of the kind previously determined on, including a 

 summer tour in Iceland, a trip to Lake Ngami, and a voyage 

 with one of the sperm-whalers in the South Seas. Meanwhile, 

 however, we have been acting the part of a stay-at-home 

 traveller, and have made our acquaintance with the Monkey 

 world through the pages of those who have been beforehand with 

 us in the matter of travelling. And really it is no bad way of 

 doing the business after all ; for with the assistance of such 

 writers as Humboldt, Darwin, Waterton, Schomburgh, Wallace, 

 and others of that class, one can travel the world over without 

 budging from his own door, and have this additional advantage, 

 of everywhere seeing things as they are, with the keenest eyes 

 and the most discriminating knowledge. One meets with none 

 of the surprises and the excitement of actual travel, it is true, in 

 this sort of book-wandering ; but neither do you experience the 

 pleasures of sea-sickness, get stung by mosquitoes, shiver with 

 ague, go mad in a raging fever, or stand in dread of being roasted 



