174 APES AND MONKEYS 



Poor little Aaron ! In the brief span of half a year he had 

 seen his own mother die at the hands of the cruel hunters ; 

 he had been seized and sold into captivity ; he had seen 

 the lingering torch of life go out of the frail body of Moses ; 

 he had watched the demon of death binding his cold shac- 

 kles on Elisheba ; and now he had himself passed through 

 the deep shadows of that ordeal. What a sad and vast 

 experience for one short year! He had shared with me 

 the toils and the dangers of sea and land over man}- a 

 weary mile. He seemed to feel that the death of his two 

 friends had been a common loss to us ; and if there is any 

 one thing which more than another knits the web of sym- 

 pathy about two alien hearts, it is the experience of a 

 common grief. 



Thus ended the career of my kulu-kamba friend, the last 

 of my chimpanzee pets. In him were centered many cher- 

 ished hopes ; but they did not perish with him, for I shall 

 some day find another one of his kind in whom I may real- 

 ize all that I had hoped for in him. I cannot expect to 

 find a specimen of superior qualities, for he was certainly 

 one of the jolliest and one of the wisest of his race. How- 

 ever fine and intelligent his successor may be, he can never 

 supplant either Moses or Aaron in my affections ; for these 

 two little heroes shared with me so many of the sad vicis- 

 situdes of time and fortune that I should be an ingrate to 

 forget them or allow the deeds of others to dim the glory 

 of their memory. I have all of them preserved, and when 

 I look at them the past comes back to me, and I recall so 

 vividly the scenes in which the}" played the leading roles ; 

 it is like the panorama of their lives. 



