NOTES ON THE CHACMA BABOON. 81 



rays of the summer sun, she invariably covered herself with a 

 sack as protection, using it as a white woman does a cloak, or a 

 Kafir woman a blanket. Her staple food was boiled mealies 

 varied with bread, of which she was particularly fond. Add 

 carrots, an occasional cabbage, fruits such as bananas and oranges, 

 and on high days some pine-apple, nuts, a few sweets, or a hand- 

 ful of tobacco, and her tale of food is completed. 



Between us there became an established friendship, in- 

 capable of being expressed in articulate speech,* but more or 

 less communicated by friendly actions, mutual confidence, and a 

 slight recourse to the universal language of gesture. Such a 

 mutual understanding as existed, and between two animals so 

 widely separated in the zoological scale, was a source to me of 

 sincere pleasure, and also a form of compliment. My poor 

 relation, the Baboon, was really anxious for comradeship, was 

 always grateful for favours, and anxious to please. I once asked 

 a clerical friend to study her as an example of original sin. She 

 had, of course, no morals — unnecessary in a Baboon community 

 — and she was cheerfully superior to all shame. She was greedy, 

 passionate, truculent, and revengeful, but as a rule contented, 

 appreciative of good living, highly courageous, and open in 

 expressing her likes and dislikes. Stoical in bad weather, she 

 was epicurean in the sunny fruit season. Decidedly cynical as 

 far as appearances are concerned, she was yet sophistical, when, 

 with cheeks filled with nuts, she returned an innocent glance to 

 my sceptical deportment before providing more. 



This animal would have been useful in a cricket field for her 

 quickness and aptitude in catching. With oranges, I tried her 

 all ways, — with pitches under-hand, and swift straight shots, — 

 but she seldom missed any, and often caught with one hand. She 

 once directed my attention to a flock of vultures soaring over- 

 head, and which I had not noticed. An East Indian vender of 

 pastry frequently visited us, when I usually purchased a tart or 

 bun for the young Baboon and herself. Should this man come 



* Anderson said that his Bushman told him he could understand the 

 Baboon language, — when they are frightened, or hungry, or are to meet 

 together to defend themselves against an enemy, or to meet to play, — and he 

 knew well what they said, and could talk to them. (' Twenty-five Years in 

 a Waggon,' p. 217.) 



