CHAPTER XI 



THE MONKEYS 



Zambezia certainly cannot be said to possess 

 many families of Monkeys. None of the great 

 apes such as have been found in the equatorial 

 regions and on the western side of the African 

 continent are found here, nor yet can we hope to 

 see that striking form existing as far south and 

 east as the high country north-west of Lake 

 Nyasa, and known as the colobus monkey — ^that 

 wonderful white and jet black type which is rarely 

 if ever seen lower than the topmost branches of 

 the forest trees. 



I remember when I was living at Mozambique, 

 where I was serving at the British Consulate in 

 the later nineties, that a statement vouched for 

 by the local natives was to the effect that upon 

 and around a certain large, table-topped mountain 

 some twenty odd miles to the northward, monkeys 

 had been seen compared with which the largest 

 baboon was but as a child to a full-grown man. 

 On two occasions 1 went up to a point as near the 

 mountain as I could reach to endeavour to obtain 

 more definite and detailed information regarding 

 this animal, but, although I was shown his haunts, 

 and made what attempts I could to obtain a speci- 

 men, or at least to see the creature, I never suc- 



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