120 AFES AND MONKEYS. 



on the rock are determined by the direction of the wind. Thej' prefer the ledges 

 of the [to man] inaccessible, abrupt escarpment of the Mediterranean face ; but 

 cannot stand the cold damp Levanter ■ftdnd which, as its name indicates, blows from 

 the eastward, and compels them to resort to the western slopes on the town side of 

 the rock. At the bottom of Charles V.'s wall, overhanging the Alameda Gardens, 

 is a favourite spot. On the western side, the Monkej's' Alameda, a small bushy 

 plateau half-way dow-n the precipice, is another choice resort, as is also Monkeys' 

 Cave, close to the sea. Of late years thej^ have become sufficiently confident in 

 their friend and protector, the signalmaster, frequently to enter the enclosure of the 

 station, especially in the summer drought, when they come for water. In a letter 

 to me, of the 3rd of May, Sei-geant Brown [the signalmaster] says : ' The monkeys 

 are sitting on the wall of the station as I write this — the fii-st time this season that 

 they have come up for watei-.' 



" Their food consists of grass (the young blades of which I have seen them 

 eating with avidity), and of a variety of roots and bulbs ; those of the yellow Cape 

 oxalis being much sought after. The fruits of the palmetto — monkey-dates, as the 

 Gibraltar urchins, who also much appreciate the little brown viscous clusters, call 

 them — are greedily devoured when ripe. The signalmaster has never observed 

 them take anj^ food left in their way at the station but a few grapes, of which they 

 seemed very fond. 



" In Sergeant Brown's letters I find several notes concerning these interesting 

 animals, which may be here introduced. ' In the spring of 1872, two were shot by 

 a young officer, who had been but a short time in the gari-ison, and probably did 

 not know that the monkeys were so strictly preserved. He replaced them with 

 either two or three of the same kind from Barbary, but the rock monkeys killed 

 them. Some yeare ago, when first stationed at Gibraltar, I saw a very large male 

 monkey in captivity at the signal station. He had been captured in one of the 

 ammunition boxes in the enclosure, baited with fruit. It had taken the united 

 efforts of three artillerjTnen, who mshed upon him ^vith their cloaks, to secure him. 

 After a while he got reconciled to his fate, but from his position, chained to the 

 wall and overlooking the eastern precipice, he was always scanning the cliffs in great 

 apparent anxietj^ and fear, which was quite unmistakable when his late comrades 

 appeared in sight. If he had rejoined them he would probably have been torn in 

 pieces. In June 1874,' saj's Sergeant Brown, ' a fire broke out on a Sunday 

 afternoon, and a strong south-west wind carried it up the slope of the cliff". . . . 

 The monkeys seemed in great distress while the tii-e was raging, and a full-grown 

 one was missed afterwards, but several births kept up the total. In the spring of 

 1875 the troop consisted of six full-grown females and two large males, with several 

 young ones. One of the males was very mangy, had a bowed back, and appeared 

 very old ; the other, a full-grown powerful monkey, I should judge to be nearly 

 3 feet long in the body, and standing nearly 5 feet high when stretched up. 

 He was lord of the tribe, kept it in order by chasing or biting any refractory 

 member, and took the lead when shifting from one side of the rock to the other, 

 which they usually did a few hours before the wind changed. I missed the large 

 male on Augu.st 7th, 1875, and in the beginning of September he was found 

 dead.' The death of this monkey seems to have been a serious blow to the 



