Chap. IX. MONKEYS RESPECTED. 191 



too often ; while we were intent on the game, and with- 

 out a thought of ants, they quietly covered us from head 

 to foot, then all began to bite at the same instant ; seizing 

 a piece of the skin with their powerful pincers, they twisted 

 themselves round with it, as if determined to tear it out. 

 Their bites are so terribly sharp that the bravest must run, 

 and then strip to pick off those that still cling with their 

 hooked jaws, as with steel forceps. This kind abounds in 

 damp places, and is usually met with on the banks of 

 streams. We have not heard of their actually killing any 

 animal except the Python, and that only when gorged 

 and quite lethargic, but they soon clear away any dead 

 animal matter ; this appears to be their principal food, 

 and their use in the economy of nature is clearly in the 

 scavenger line. 



We started from the Sinjere on the 12th of June, our 

 men carrying with them bundles of hippopotamus meat 

 for sale, and for future use. We rested for breakfast 

 opposite the Kakolole dyke, which confines the channel, 

 west of the Manyerere mountain. A rogue monkey, the 

 largest by far that we ever saw, and very fat and tame, 

 walked off leisurely from a garden as we approached. The 

 monkey is a sacred animal in this region, and is never 

 molested or killed, because the people believe devoutly that 

 the souls of their ancestors now occupy these degraded forms, 

 and anticipate that they themselves must, sooner or later, be 

 transformed in like manner; a future as cheerless for the 

 black, as the spirit-rapper's heaven is for the whites. The 

 gardens are separated from each other by a single row of 

 small stones, a few handfuls of grass, or a slight furrow made 

 by the hoe. Some are enclosed by a reed fence of the 

 flimsiest construction, yet sufficient to keep out the ever wary 



