THE APES AND THE NATIVES 157 



special interest to them. They would stand by the cage 

 hour after hour and watch them. The ruling impulse of 

 nearly all natives appears to be cruelty, and they cannot 

 resist the temptation to tease and torture anything that is 

 not able to retaliate. They were so persistent in poking 

 sticks at my chimpanzees that I had to keep a boy on 

 watch all the time to prevent it ; but the boy could not be 

 trusted, so I had to watch him. 



In the rear of the room that I occupied was a window 

 through which, from time to time, I watched the boy and 

 the natives, and when anything went wrong I would call 

 out to the boy. Aaron soon observed this and found that 

 he could get my attention himself by calling out when any 

 one annoyed him, and he also knew that the boy was put 

 there as a protector. Whenever any of the natives came 

 about the cage he would call for me in his peculiar man- 

 ner, which I well understood and promptly responded to. 

 The boy also knew what the call meant and would rush 

 to the rescue. If I were away from the house and the 

 boy were aware of the fact, he was apt to be tardy in com- 

 ing to the relief of the ape, and sometimes he did not 

 come at all. In the latter event the two would crawl into 

 their house and pull down the curtain so that they could 

 not be seen. Here they would remain until the natives 

 had left or some one came to their aid. 



Neither of the apes ever resented anything the natives 

 did to them, unless they could see me about ; but when- 

 ever I came in sight they would make battle with their 

 tormentors, and, if liberated from the big cage, they would 

 chase the last one of them out of the yard. Aaron knew 



