BABOONS. 
127 
In disposition all the baboons are the reverse of amiable, and they are 
accustomed to fly into paroxysms of fury at any object which enrages or excites 
them; but some of the species are capable of being more or less completely tamed, 
and even learning a certain number of tricks; and it appears that members of 
one species were habitually tamed by the ancient Egyptians. 
We shall have occasion again to refer to the early period at which baboons 
must have been known to the Egyptians, and we have already mentioned that they 
take their scientific name from their ancient Greek title. To show that they were 
known in Europe at least two centuries ago, we extract an account which, though 
often quoted, is so interesting and so quaint that it will bear another repetition. 
This work is by one Ludolph, and relates to the ancient Ethiopia, the modern 
Abyssinia; the English translation being published in the year 1684. “Of apes,” 
writes Ludolph, “ there are infinite flocks up and down in the mountains, a thousand 
and more together; there they leave no stone unturned. If they meet with one 
that two or three cannot lift, they call for more aid, and all for the sake of the 
wormes that lye under; a sort of diet which they relish exceedingly. They are 
very greedy after emmets. So that having found an emmet-hill, they presently 
surround it, and, laying their fore-paws with the hollow downward upon the ant- 
heap, as fast as the emmets creep into their treacherous palms, they lick ’em off* 
with great comfort to their stomachs; and there they will lie till there is not an 
emmet left. They are also pernicious to fruit and apples, and will destroy whole 
fields and gardens unless they be carefully look’d after. For they are very cunning, 
and will never venture in till the return of their spies, which they send always 
before; who giving information that all things are safe, in they rush with their 
whole body, and make a quick dispatch. Therefore they go very quiet and silent to 
their prey; and if their young chance to make a noise, they chastise them with 
their fists; but if they find the coast clear, then every one hath a different noise to 
express his joy. Nor could there be any to hinder them from further multiplying, 
but that they fall sometimes into the ruder hands of the wild beasts, which they 
have no way to avoid but by a timely flight, or by creeping into the clefts of the 
rocks. If they find no safety in flight, they make a virtue of necessity, stand their 
ground, and, filling their paws full of dust or sand, fling it into the eyes of their 
assailant, and then to their heels again.” 
Although Ludolph may have mixed up some other monkeys with them, there 
can be little doubt but that in the main this marvellous account refers to the 
Arabian baboon, which is still so common in Abyssinia. This identification is 
strongly supported by his mention of the large number of individuals in a troop, 
by the reference to rocks, by the search after insects, and also by the allusion to 
encounters with leopards. It must, however, be confessed that the figures of 
monkeys with which Ludolph’s narrative is illustrated, bear but little resem¬ 
blance to baboons, although this may well be explained by the degree of licence 
which the engravers of his epoch seem to have allowed themselves in such 
matters. 
We now proceed to notice in detail the better known of the various species 
of baboons, commencing with the more typical ones with comparatively long 
tails, and concluding with the others, like the drill and mandrill, in which these 
