SHOOT MONKEYS 



felled. Even if it proves a straight-grained tree, all the 

 rest of the trunk and limbs are left to rot where they lie, 

 for suitable trees are now only found so deep in the forest, 

 that it does not pa\- to carry the wooel awa\- for fuel. 



On some cultivated ground at the edge of the jungle 

 we came on a big band of monkeys, and, as I wished 

 to secure specimens of all the animals I met with, I 

 shot a couple of males. Just after this a man came on 

 the scene, and was most anxious for me to accompany 

 him up a rocky hill -top to shoot some beasts, but 

 whether they were klipspringer or not we could not 

 make out. At any rate we set off and climbed for one 

 and a half hours, but without seeing anything. On the 

 way down, an old Galla brought me a great bowl of 

 fresh milk and refused all payment, but, in return for his 

 kindness, I persuaded him to let me give his small 

 daughter a Menelik two-anna bit to hang round her 

 neck. It was amusing to see how the people standing 

 by examined this coin, evidently never having seen one 

 before, although only a day's journey from the capital : 

 so little does Menelik's new coinage circulate, except at 

 I larrar and in Adis Ababa. We then returned to the 

 spot where I had shot the monkeys, and, while the men 

 were skinning them, I spent the heat of the day under a 

 tree. Just as we were starting down, a goatherd came 

 and pointed out to me a couple of bushbuck creep- 

 ing about in the undergrowth, close to where his goats 

 were feeding. It took some time before I could make 

 out which was the buck, but as soon as I did so, my 

 first head of this Abyssinian species was rolling down- 

 hill. As soon as this was skinned, we began our descent, 



