160 APES AND MONKEYS 



permitted to approach the elephant ; but their solicitude 

 for me was remarked by every man on board. I was never 

 able to tell what their opinion of the thing was. They 

 were much less afraid of the elephant when they could see 

 all of him, than they were of the trunk when they saw that 

 alone. Thev may have thought the latter to be a bis: 

 snake ; but this is only a conjecture. 



At the beginning of the voyage I took six panels of my 

 own cage and made a small cage for them. I taught them 

 to drink water from a beer bottle with a Ions: neck that 

 could be put through a mesh of the wires. They preferred 

 this mode of drinking and appeared to look upon it as an 

 advanced idea. Elisheba always insisted on being served 

 first ; being a female, her wish was complied with. When 

 she had finished, Aaron would climb up by the wires and 

 take his turn. There is a certain sound, or word, which 

 the chimpanzee always uses to express "good" or "satis- 

 faction," and he made frequent use of it. He would drink 

 a few swallows of the water and then utter the sound, 

 whereupon Elisheba would climb up again and taste. She 

 seemed to think it something better than she was drinking, 

 but finding it the same as she had had, she would again 

 o-ive way for him. Every time he used the sound she 

 would take another taste and turn away ; but she never 

 failed to try it if he uttered the sound. 



The boy who cared for them on the voyage was disposed 

 to play tricks on them. One of these ugly pranks was 

 to turn the bottle up so that when they had finished drink- 

 ing and took their lips away, the water would spill out and 

 run down over them. Several times they declined to 



