248 THE BABOONS 



made to catch me, but I have since found the 

 practice I am about to describe to be a very general 

 one. All that is necessary is a well-secured 

 calabash gourd. Into this, through a small 

 aperture barely large enough to admit the open 

 hand of the victim, a few grains of maize or a 

 small quantity of millet is placed, and the trap 

 deposited in some spot where the baboons are 

 likely to pass. On arrival the eager band are 

 not long in discovering it, and the unlucky wight 

 to do so promptly squeezes his hand through 

 the hole, and closes it triumphantly on the grains 

 of food within. Game is now called, and the 

 watching natives draw nigh to secure their cap- 

 tive. Seeing their approach he makes the most 

 desperate efforts to escape, but finds that with 

 his marauding hand now firmly closed on the 

 bait, which it never for one moment occurs to him 

 to relinquish, he cannot get it out of the gourd, 

 and is thus forced to permit the detaining sack 

 to be thrust over his head without further 

 resistance than a few desperate bites at the hands 

 of his captors. 



But however tame baboons may become in 

 captivity, nothing will ever finally extinguish 

 that mischievous spirit of inherent naughtiness 

 which every one of these animals possesses. I 

 remember, as a case in point, an incident which 

 took place at Beira when I resided there in 1898. 

 I do not quite recollect the occasion, but I fancy 

 it was connected with the Vasco da Gama cele- 

 brations which took place in that year, a part of 

 which was the celebration of a High Mass to which 



