AARON AND ELISHEBA 123 



sisted. If she returned the blow he would grasp 

 her hand and bite it, or strike her in the face. He 

 would continue to fight till she submitted, when he 

 would celebrate his victory by jumping up and down 

 in a most grotesque fashion, stamping his feet, 

 slapping his hands on the ground, and grinning 

 like a mask. He seemed as conscious of what he 

 had done and as proud of it as any human could 

 have been ; but no matter what she did to others, 

 he was always on her side of the question. If any 

 one else annoyed her, he would always resent it with 

 violence. 



About the premises there were natives all the 

 time passing to and fro, and these two little captives 

 were objects of special interest to them. They 

 would stand by the cage hour after hour and watch 

 them. The ruling impulse of nearly every native 

 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 

 my chimpanzees with sticks, 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 I watched the boy and the 

 natives both from time to time, and when anything 

 went wrong I would call out from there 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 



