144 
NATURAL HISTORY . 
book and read it aloud to him ; and liis rage was so violent that, as Mr. Darwin witnessed, on one 
occasion he bit his own leg till the blood flowed. 
THE PIG-TAILED BABOON, OR CHACMA * 
The Hottentots are familiar with one of the largest kinds of the Baboons, which reaches the size 
of an English Mastiff, and has superior strength, and they call it the T’chackamma, which has been 
reduced by Europeans to the “ Chacma. ” The colonists of the Cape of Good Hope districts called it 
the Black Ape, and then, from some fanciful resemblance of its tail to that of a Pig, the creature was 
dignified with the name Porcarius. 
The Chacmas are found in great troops, and they behave very much after the manner of the other 
large Baboons, their strength rendering them a terror to the Dogs of the colonists. In ascending the 
kloofs, or passes, in the mountains of South Africa, which are frequently steep, narrow, and dangerous, 
travellers often disturb great troops of these animals, which have been sunning themselves on the 
rocks. If not attacked they scamper up the sides of the mountains yelling and screaming. They resent 
being fired upon, after the usual manner, by rolling down stones. 
The Chacma has a fine black tail, which is rather more than half the length of the body, and it 
has a tuft of long black hair at its tip. It is carried like that of the other long-tailed Baboons, being 
curved upwards at first, and then falling down straight. Nearly all the fur of the body is a uniform 
dark brown, almost black, mixed throughout with a dark green shade. It is long and shaggy, par- 
ticularly on the neck and shoulders of the males. II a solitary hair be pulled out, it will be found to 
be very curiously ornamented. It has a root, like all hairs, springing from a little pimple under the 
scarf-skin, and its colour is at first of a light grey colour. Then it is marked with wide rings 
of colour, which are perfectly distinct, and they are alternately black and dark green, but sometimes 
they are intermixed with a few of a lighter or yellowish shade. The lace and ears are naked, as 
are also the palms and soles, and there are small whiskers, grey in colour and brushed backwards. 
Naked as are the face, ears, and hands, the skin is of a very dark violet-blue colour, with a pale 
ring surrounding each eye. Strange to say, the upper eyelids are white. 
In the adult the muzzle is very long in comparison with the skull, which is greatly flattened 
and contracted ; but in the young, the size of the nose is not so apparent, and the head is rounder, 
and the brain case is larger in proportion. As age comes on, the brain is not increased in size cor- 
respondingly with the face. 
There is no doubt that the old Baboons have a very fine sense of smelling, their noses arc large, 
and the sentient surface is great ; moreover, this gift has been tested and used to the advantage of 
many a wanderer and settler in the districts where water is scarce at the surface, but plentiful here 
and there, resting on rocks which are covered with sand or soil. The Baboon can find out water when 
even the Bushmen arc quite at fault, and when other animals arc dying of thirst. When a manageable 
Baboon is at hand, and people are in a dreary district searching for water, they lead him in the required 
direction suffering from thirst, and give him his liberty. He moves over the ground quickly, smelling 
here and there, or gallops with extended nostrils, now turning in one direction and now in another, 
quartering out his ground like a Dog. Sooner or later he stops and begins to dig with his hands, and 
then the people come up, and water is almost always found, and in quantity. 
Although the young Chacmas are playful enough, and are full of nonsense and fun in captivity, 
they, like all their kindred Baboons, become surly, ferocious, and unsafe as they grow old and have 
their bodies perfectly developed to the perfection of baboonism. That is to say, when the face, jaws, 
and teeth become as large as they ever will be, and the body becomes as short and as muscular as 
possible. They then scowl at the visitor, and grind and show their great teeth at the slightest 
provocation, grumbling and growling also, and in fact, to quote the words of a very precise naturalist, 
u the fierceness and brutality of their character and manners correspond with the expression of their 
physiognomy. ” Nevertheless, they are amenable to soft influences. In spite of their savage and 
untamable disposition, they are influenced by that most potent of all attractions. I hey are, in the 
language of the writer just quoted, “agitated by the passion of love or jealousy. In captivity they 
* Ct/Docephalus porcarius. 
