THE MONKEYFOLK OF SOUTH AFRICA 115 



a real live intelligent creature, for it captures all these tiny 

 microbe-like fellows which you call animalcules. Now," 

 went on this humanfolk fellow, " when there is any poison- 

 ous substance in the water, it settles down inside the shell, 

 and is even sucked up into the inside of the shellfish. It 

 doesn't do the shellfish any harm. In fact it can turn it 

 into food. Well, in some places along the coast, the sea- 

 weed grows very abundantly, and after a storm great heaps 

 of it are thrown upon the rocks. This seaweed rots, as 

 well as the millions of tiny creatures which live in and on it. 

 This putrefying seaweed poisons the water in all directions 

 near by. Those poisons get absorbed inside, or particles 

 lodge in the shellfish, and if they are eaten shortly after, 

 or at the time, by warm-blooded creatures like ourselves 

 and you baboonfolk, we get poisoned. Dreadful cramps 

 grip our stomachs and our bowels, and make us so sick that 

 we cannot walk. Sometimes numbers of our folk die after 

 eating mussels or oysters which have been gathered near 

 towns, because they have sucked in some of the putrid 

 substances which run from sewers into the sea." 



I think this humanfolk fellow's explanation very reason- 

 able, for now I think of it, there was a rather bad smell in 

 the air when our folk were gathering the mussels. Besides, 

 I saw great heaps of some dark substance which, I suppose, 

 must have been seaweed. 



COMBAT WITH A LIONESS 



I am one of a clan of baboons who live near the Black 

 Umfolosi River, in Zululand. Our home is in a bush- 

 covered kop or rock-topped roundish hill where there are 

 a number of steep rocks amongst which we sleep, and re- 

 treat when enemies are about. There are no farmer men 

 with guns to worry us, and we don't fear the Zulus, for they 

 cannot harm us with their spears, for our retreat is beyond 



