82 THE MONKEYFOLK OF SOUTH AFRICA 



The most of it you allow to half-rot, and then you make 

 a poison out of it, which you drink, and which makes you 

 do all kinds of evil things, so that your prisons are full of 

 people. Yes, and this poison weakens your brains by 

 destroying the tiny brain cells, and makes your blood weak 

 and poor. So, of course, there are thousands of weak- 

 minded and mad folk amongst you, and there are asylums 

 full of lunatics in every land. Your cities are full of cripples, 

 weak, diseased folk, useless, good-for-nothing loafers, and 

 hosts of evil people who have to be watched constantly 

 by a whole army of people you call policemen. You make 

 war upon and kill each other. When you are strongly 

 tempted, great numbers of you give way — ^yes, and quite 

 willingly too. Why, everything you know has been learned 

 by copying and improving upon what the various creatures 

 do, or by watching and studying the other wondrous works 

 of our Great and All-Wise Creator. The world wasn't 

 made for you humanfolk only. Because you happen to be 

 at the top of the Tree of Evolution, it doesn't justify you 

 in wantonly taking the lives of all other creatures just 

 because they have not reached the stage of development 

 you call " human." 



THE RESCUE 



I am a womanfolk baboon, and I live with a small clan 

 amongst some rocky hills of the Karoo. One day we 

 decided to climb the steep rugged sides of a bush-covered 

 hill, where a scout had told us there was an abundance 

 of wild fruits and berries, as well as three bees' hives. My 

 little boy was four months old, and was growing very heavy. 

 Fearing to take him with me lest he might get injured, or 

 in my endeavour to hold him I might lose my foothold 

 and fall to the bottom of the cliff, I left him to amuse 

 himself on a large flat boulder. I knew there were no 



