ODD 



The Review of Reviews. 



BABOONS AS WAITERS AND SHEPHERDS. 



In the " Unconventional Reminiscences," wliicli 

 W. S. Scully contributes to The State for October, he 

 describes a baboon hunt, and then bears witness to 

 the high intelligence of the animal. He says : — 



The South Afric.nn Iraboon possesses intelligence of a high 

 order and is quite capable of being, if nol civilised exactly, 

 tamed to man's service. The natives always say that baboons 

 and monkeys can talk, but are afraid to do so within human 

 hearing lest they should be captured and made to work. I 

 kirow of two quite authentic instances of baljoons having been 

 completely domesticated. One was at LHtenhage, where a 

 pointsman on the railway line lost his legs through an .accident. 

 This man liad a tame biboon which used to haul him dou-n en 

 a trolley every day to the scene of his labours, and there, under 

 direction, manipulate the points for him. This went on for 

 many years. The lialioon in question used sometimes to be 

 brought to the hotel in the evening. There he would act as 

 waiter, carrying trays of liquor to the guests. However, one of 

 his peculiarities had to be taken into account. K glass of his 

 favourite tipple — I forget for the moment what it was, hut it 

 was something alcoholic — had to be placed on the tray with the 

 other items. After carrying the tray to where the guests were, 

 he would place it on the floor while he consumed his own 

 beverage. Then he would walk from one guest to another, 

 distributing the drinks. If anyone atlcmpled to help himself 

 before the waiter had consumed his own drink, a disturbance 

 ensued. 



The Waiters' Trade Union should keep a sharp eye 

 on these possible rivals. Mr. .Scully goes on : — 



The other instance w.as that of a baboon captured when very 

 young on the farm of a Mr. Rogers, in the Cathcart district 

 This animal, when it grew up, was trained to the calling of a 

 shepherd ; and a most excellent shepherd it made. Intense 

 love for tlie .animals under its charge was this creature's dominant 

 characteristic. It was regularly rationed, and it slept in the 

 shed with its charges, which it could not bear to let out of its 

 sight. The Ixaboon's only fault was the outcome of its extreme 

 solicitude ; if the most distant coughing-bark of a wild baboon 

 was heard in the veld, the shepherd would hurry his flock back 

 to the homestead and pen it in the fold. 



CONGO LOGIC. 



In the Sunday at Home, Rev. J. Lumley Davies, 

 describing life on the Congo, says : — 



The horror-stricken natives are often filled with a burning 

 hatred when a white man approaches their vill.ige. They have 

 their (easons for this. They believe that the white man is very 

 wicked and that he lives under the sea. Does he not come in 

 ships, the masts of which are seen first coming up, and depart 

 in ships, the masts of which arc seen last going down into the 

 sea t And if another proof is needed, is not the follow ing a 

 sufficiently convincing one ? .'Ml we people who live on the 

 earth (the natives say) have curly hair, but all while folk, 

 because they live under the sea, have straight hair ; this is 

 because the .action of the water takes all the curl out of the 

 while nian's hair 1 



Moreover, is not the while man treacherous and deceitful ? 

 Whenever a native dies, is it not true that the white man, when 

 he can, takes the body to Mfulii, and there, througli his strong 

 magic, he restores the native to life again, and forces him 

 to make cloth — a work wdiich (he white man himself docs not 

 like? 



Then — how can the blatk man love the white ? The latter 

 has taken all his ancestors, and he knows not how soon he 

 himself may be taken. Il.ad the white man not been in the 

 Congo, very few of the natives would ever die I 



Hero, perhaps, the premises may be fault)', btii 

 too often the conclusion appears only too sound. 



PLAIN SPEAKING BY AN INDIAN. 



In the Iiulian Magazine for November Mr. V. CI. 

 I'radhan, speaking on the social needs of India, | 

 attacks the priesthood and the caste system. He says i 

 the iiriestly class lives on the ignorance of the people. ! 

 Afraid of losing the loaves and fisheS; and unable to 

 read aright the signs of the times, they act as a dead- 

 lock to reform. Even spiritually their influence does 

 not make for the elevation of society. Such a priest- 

 hood must disappear if the twentieth century 

 rationalism and humanitarianism have to do their 

 purifying and elevating work in the reorganisation of 

 Hindu society. It is high time that the caste system 

 was sent to the limbo of oblivion, and the sooner it 

 is done the better. He then deals faithfully with the 

 Indian student, who, he says, has, broadly speaking, 

 been a failure. " With certain exceptions, the Indian 

 student in the West is becoming a degener'Jte. He 

 is a superficial product of the veneer of Western 

 civilisation, notorious for aping its worst features, and 

 lacking those redeetning features which, after all, are 

 the heart and soul of this seemingly materialistic 

 civilisation. He is hardly serious in anything, except- 

 ing theatre-going. The student for the Bar is, I think, 

 the worst sinner." 



THE REVIVAL OF BIBLE LANDS. 



Wiix the Bible Lands become Great agaiti? is the 

 inquiry raised by Sir W. ,M. Ramsay in the Sunday at 

 Home. He points out how that their decay has been 

 due to disregard of the laws of nature and of religion. 

 He thinks they cannot be now revived by purely 

 commercial schemes. There are few places where 

 reclamation could be a paying commercial proposi- 

 tion. Egypt is an exception. So probably is the 

 Plain of Iconium, where the great German scheme of 

 irrigation will not be completed for three years yet : — 



The revival of the Bible lands can be brought about only 

 by educating the people and producing in them the habit of 

 work, and the knowledge how to direct their work. Those 

 lands were in the beginning subdued to. the use of man by the 

 laliour of generations of peasants, who worked for the benefit of 

 their families and descendants, who trusted the future, and who 

 did not demand a large or aii early return on their outlay. 

 Those peasants gave their labour and their lives, but they had no 

 money to spend or to invest. Only by that kind of w'ork will 

 the same lands again be made fully productive; and for that a 

 mental and moral regeneration of the population is necessary as 

 a prelitriinary. 



How shall such a regeneration be wrought ? Where shall we 

 expect a saviour of the people ? I venture to think that mission- 

 ary enterprise promises to bring about that desired result ; and I 

 see no other cause that holds out the slightest hop-, no other 

 agency that aims at or even dreams of improving the people of 

 the Levant lands. 



. The Zionist movement Sir William does not wel- 

 come. It is, he says, a narrow sectarian movement, 

 and he does not believe that the Bible lands can ever 

 revive again through a narrow separatism. "That 

 they will revive and he populous, prosperous and 

 happy, I do not doubt." 



