108 HUNTING IN THE JUNGLE. 



rupees (twelve dollars and fifty cents) and coming down 

 to five, the goat became mine, and the little orang-outang 

 obtained a step-mother that soon rivalled its own mother 

 in tenderness. She nursed it and caressed it exactly as if it 

 had been her own, and a very pretty sight it was. He 

 soon grew large enough to travel on his own stm^dy legs, 

 at any sudden alarm running quickly back to his nurse 

 and clinging to her with his sinewy fingers. 



When he strayed away out of her sight in the woods, 

 it was really pathetic to hear her bleatings and his 

 answering cries. He had gradually come to know me, 

 and he treated us all with the greatest gentleness. When 

 he was three months old I began to give him bananas, 

 of which he was very fond, and he afterward became 

 accustomed to other fruits ; but nothing ever pleased him 

 like the goat's milk. He learned very quickly, and at 

 five months knew all objects in my tent by name, 

 bringing to me anything I called for, which was certainly 

 more than many children of two or even three years 

 could have done. But with the latter, development pro- 

 gresses with giant strides after that age, while with an 

 orang it ceases. What an animal is at one year of age 

 he always remains. 



One morning a Chinaman came to offer for sale a tiny 

 monkey which he had partially tamed. This little ani- 

 mal looked like a pygmy beside my young orang, but 

 he could do a variety of things, like feeding himself, etc., 

 that the larger was not yet up to. So I bought him, 



