242 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



The baboon stands in no awe of women; he seems 

 quite aware of their inferiority, in point of strength and 

 courage, to the sterner sex, and despises them accord- 

 ingly. At one place near Graaff-Reinet the women 

 never dared to go and fetch water unless accompanied 

 by men ; for the baboons, which were very numerous, 

 would always chase and threaten any daughter of Eve 

 who ventured, without masculine escort, near their 

 haunts. 



Baboons captured in babyhood and brought up in 

 human society are capable of becoming extremely tame. 

 Like all other very intelligent animals, they vary much 

 in disposition, a docile and tractable one soon learning 

 to perform many clever tricks, and being an amusing 

 companion, though too often a mischievous one. A 

 gentleman at Willowmore owned two large, splendidly- 

 trained performing baboons, which would have made 

 the fortune of any circus-proprietor. They would to- 

 gether enact a series of complicated tricks, each going 

 through his allotted part without a mistake. Both 

 were most attentive and obedient to orders, and never 

 by any chance would "Joe" so far forget his duty as to 

 respond to the command given to " Jim," or vice versa. 



Occasionally, too, Adonis who cannot, even by his 

 best friends, be called ornamental is taught to make 

 himself useful; he has in several instances been seen 

 filling the post of voorlooper to the waggons of travel- 

 ling Boers, acquitting himself on the whole quite as 

 creditably as his Hottentot fellow-servants. And at 

 one railway station in the colony a baboon was for a long 



