170 SPORTING AND 



described. In my despair and anguish I 

 dropped my hand to my side, and it was 

 seized in an instant by the powerful jaws of 

 one of the largest of the brutes, who bit me 

 to the very bone. This was the climax of 

 of my sufferings, and I sank on the 

 ground in a dead faint. How long I lay 

 insensible I have no idea, but when I 

 came to myself, the monkeys were still 

 around me in numbers, and some were 

 sitting upon me ; all the trees in my 

 vicinity were crowded with them, chat- 

 tering at the top of their voices, and 

 evidently very proud of the victory they 

 had obtained. I was here startled by a 

 loud report close to my ear, and, on look- 

 ing round, I discovered that my gun had 

 exploded. It appeared that when my 

 hand fell to my side in my agony, my gun 

 had dropped out of my paralysed fingers ; 



