BABOONS AS FIGHTERS 
alike, and baboon hunts are a regular thing among the 
colonists. 
As to their courage and fighting prowess, various accounts 
are given. ig go in bands, sometimes exceeding one hun- 
dred individuals of all ages, and choose for their lairs cliffs and 
rocky ridges full of crevices and thickets, such as the extraor- 
dinary Black Rocks of Angola, where the yellow yenow & 
baboon dwells in thousands, and subsists mainly on Babee. 
lichens. 7% such places they are safe against any enemies 
except leopards (which the old males are said to be ablé to 
vanquish), and the larger serpents or birds of prey; and these 
can make away only with the young now and then. Dogs 
dare not attack full-sized baboons, which have been seen again 
and again going fearlessly to the aid of some little one that 
dogs have ‘“‘treed” on a rock. G. A. Henty, whose sto- 
ries have been the delight of so many boys and girls, and 
who accompanied the British Expedition to Abyssinia in 1868, 
has written in his “March to Magdala” amusing accounts 
of their battles with dogs and other doings. Although the 
negroes, especially the women, have an inordinate fear of them, 
trustworthy evidence of their ever having attacked _a_man, 
except in defense of their young, is not at hand. A band will, 
however, roll or throw stones or anything else they can get 
hold of against intruders, and their aim is distressingly true. 
In Volume I of “‘Cassell’s Natural History,” where Pro- 
fessor P. Martin Duncan has given an extended account of all 
the baboons, including much history and odd fable, the fol- 
lowing paragraph occurs in reference to the big, lion-maned 
geladas (Theropithecus) of southern Abyssinia : — 
“They descend and sometimes rob the farmers with impunity, and re- 
turn after having committed a vast amount of mischief. But it happens 
that the great dog-faced troops are out on the same errand, and the two sets 
of thieves speedily disagree. A fight ensues, and the geladas roll down 
great stones which the others try to avoid, and then they all rush together 
to close quarters, making a great uproar, and fighting with great fury- 
35 
