Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

record. This monkey, by sheer force of | seized the root as low down as he could, brains, took command of the dogs kept to protect the camp, and used and directed them just as the older baboons command and direct the rest of their tribe. "By his cries," says Le Vaillant, "he always warned us of the approach of an enemy before my dogs discovered it. The dogs were so accustomed to his voice that they used to go to sleep, aud I was at first vexed with them for deserting their duties. When he once had given the alarm, they would all stop to watch for his signal, and on the least motion of his eyes or the shaking of his head, I have seen them all rush forward to the quarter towards which they observed that his looks were directed."

This voluntary enrolment of the dogs under the command of the superior animal is perhaps the best evidence of its ability as a watch. But it also shows the moral effect of the monkey's deliberate, thoughtful method of action. Baboons are never in a hurry, and it is easy to read between the lines of Le Vaillant's account the "thoughtfulness" and thoroughness which all who have observed them have noted as a characteristic of the actions of this species,

"I often carried him on my hunting expeditions," continues Le Vaillant, "during which he would amuse himself by climbing trees in order to aid in the search for game"-he does not say what game "a pursuit of which he was remarkably fond." While out shooting with his master he used, when thirsty, to hunt for and discover a succulent tuber, which was as effectual for quenching thirst as a watermelon. In this, as we have said, he was not more clever than the truffle-dog. But the truffle hunter has to carry a spade. The dog can find, but not dig up, the root. The baboon did both, having the advantage of hands, though he used these, not to extract the root, but to adjust his weight so as to use the leverage of his teeth to the best advantage. "He laid hold of the tuft of leaves with his teeth, pressed his four paws on the earth on all sides of it, then drawing his head slowly back, the root generally followed." If this did not succeed, he

and then, throwing his heels over his head, turned a "back somersault," and came up smiling, with the root in his mouth. Le Vaillant taught him to make it part of his business to find these roots, and to let his master go shares. The only trouble given by the animal was that he stole milk from the cans, or rather baskets, which were brought to the camp. But this thieving habit could doubtless have been cured. The monkey was so thoroughly tamed to the service of man that, like tame horses on the prairie, it had the greatest horror and fear of the wild ones which sometimes approached the camp.

These chacma baboons, and their relations, the Anubis baboons, are sometimes used to discover water in dry seasons, which they can do when even the Bushmen fail to find it. A single monkey is taken out thirsty and let loose, when it quarters the ground like a pointer, snuffing in all the likely places, until it stops, and begins to dig with its hands, and if the sand be dug away water soon oozes into the hollow. This feat, which has been seen both in South Africa and in Angola, on the western coast, is not so wonderful as it seems, because it is only done in the country where the water collects in hollows on a rocky bottom, which are soon blown over and covered by sand. The surface becomes dry and shifting. though lower down the water and sand lie mixed upon the rocky bed. But no other animal seems to have either the scent or the power of using it possessed by the baboon. Even if they could detect the water, the want of hands to scoop away the sand and procure it would make their knowledge as unprofitable as discovering water in a well which had no bucket. An Anubis baboon kept in Upper Egypt was used as a house-dog, being kept chained at the door. It knew all the usual visitors to the house, but prevented others from entering by walking up and down across the doorway. In mediæval times numbers of these animals were brought to Europe and kept as pets, and there is hardly a nation of southern and

western Europe among whom stories have not survived of their cleverness, sociability, and courage. That most familiar to us is the story of the baboon which rescued the child of the Fitzgerald family from their burning castle.

Meantime it is just possible that we might improve our own resources in the matter of draught animals for use in country districts, and more especially on the large shooting estates on the Scotch moorlands, by borrowing a hint from northern Europe and northera Asia. The only animal which can travel at speed over heather and bog is the reindeer. Comparing his experience of the powers of draught of the reindeer on the "tundra" of the Arctic coast with the performance of ponies on the Scotch moors, Mr. A. Trevor

The use of monkeys as substitutes for human slaves has long been a dream of animal trainers, but there is no single instance of its realization except the very curious account given by Walter Gibson in his curious autobiography, "The Prisoner of Waltevreden." He there states that when visiting a Malay | Battye declares that the former are in chief he saw an orang-outang, called by him an orang kubu, carrying materials for building a house, in two panniers slung to the ends of a stick, and that it was employed with human coolies engaged in the same work. The Malay declared that the orang-outangs were descended from some slaves of Alexander the Great! They were, he added, accursed of Allah, companions of djins on earth, fit only to be beasts of burden; the Malays sometimes hunted them in pits and tree-tops, and made slaves of them! But though Gibson describes the animal carefully, the account, which seems written in good faith, may only describe some member of a hairy savage human tribe in the forest. He, however, says definitely that the creature was an orang-outang.

It is only in the department of "skilled labor," in which their special gifts of sight, scent, hearing, and speed, are used to supplement the powers of man, that animal service is at a discount. For beasts of burden and beasts of draught the development of new countries has raised a demand which it will take years of experience and experiment to supply. In some cases, as in the introduction of the camel to western Australia, the want has been met with brilliant success; in others, as in Rhodesia, every form of animal transport is, so far, a failure. The proposal to create in Somaliland an elephant reserve, for the redomestication of the African species, is in part the result of this need for a reliable transport animal in Rhodesia.

every way superior for the ordinary draught work at a Scotch shooting-lodge. They can travel at speed over the roughest heather, will swim or flounder over the wettest bog, still drawing their sledge, and would convey shooting parties, dead game, or provisions to and from the most distant and difficult ground at a speed of from ten to twelve miles an hour. The experiment of breeding young reindeer has already succeeded at Woburn Abbey, and before long some trial teams will be working in the Highlands.

A second northern draught animal, or possible draught animal, has already been introduced, though with a very different object from that which the writer would suggest is its proper use. This is the large "chow-dog" from northern China, which a freak of fashion has decreed shall be kept as a pet by English ladies. These dogs are not suited either by nature or training for domestic pets. They are only halfcivilized dogs, very excitable, often savage, and so little considered in the light of household companions in their native Manchuria that they are bred for the sake of their fur, and killed, like seals, when the fur is in season. But they are born sledge-dogs, immensely strong in the shoulder and short in the neck, with pulling powers far greater than those of any of the breeds used in Holland and Belgium for drawing carts. If the laws against the use of dogs for draught are repealed, just as the laws against road-engines and steam-carts are about to be repealed, the "chows"

would form the basis of a new breed | also used a pole or spear-handle, which of cart dogs for minor traffic.

C. J. CORNISH.

From The Pall Mall Magazine. THE CALLS TO PRAYERS. The Eastern Christians in the time of Mohammed called the faithful together for worship with wooden clappers, which the Prophet adopted prior to the institution of the muezzin, who screams the hours of prayer from the outside gallery of the minaret. But Mohammed seems first of all to have taken up the Semitic custom of calling to prayer with a horn, which also still existed among the Ethiopian Christians some two centuries ago. When the Saracens, under Salah-ed-Din, retook Jerusalem in 1187, the conqueror would not enter the city until all the Christian bells, put up during the previous eighty-eight years, had been smashed up for melting down. When the Turks took Cyprus in 1570, they in like manner melted down the church bells to make more cannon for the defences of the towns. But these bells must have been replaced by the Greek Christians-perhaps a good many were buried for safety, and dug up again-for in 1670 their noise was again forbidden by the Turkish pasha, and the wooden clappers were reverted to. They had to beat a board-"battre un ais," as the Abbé Mariti stated it. And indeed, when the question is pushed home, it would seem that some such wooden summoners were the only original "bells" of the Eastern Christian Church, and that metallic bells were not introduced to the seat of the Eastern Empire, Constantinople, until the ninth century. The records of the Synod or Council of Cæsarea mention the beating of the "holy timbers," lignea sacra (a reminiscence of treeworship?), at the translation of the body of the martyr Anastasius; and there is other evidence that a board or tabula was beaten to call mourners to funerals-not so very far off the Chinese custom. The Greeks seem to have

they struck with a double mallet, and called a sêmantron, or signal. But it is at the same time worthy of note that during the three days-from Thursday to Saturday-of the Holy, or Greater Week, on which the bells are not rung in the Latin rite, a crotola, or crotalum (a wooden sort of clapper or castanets in Rome) is struck when actually necessary during the sacred offices. The earliest Eastern Christian bells are said to have been twelve of great weight obtained by the Emperor Michael the Sot (842-867), or by his successor, Basil the Macedonian, from Ursus Patricianus, Doge of Venice.

Up to about 1867 there existed scarce a Christian place of worship, whether Orthodox or Catholic, in Mohammedan Bosnia, to which worshippers were summoned by any other means than the toka, a wooden slab with a wooden hammer, which, since the irruption of the Turks, says Mr. J. de Asbóth, has been in use in all the villages of southern Hungary. In all likelihood such was also the custom before the Turk; the Hungarians would else have reverted to bells at the first chance, had there been such a reversion to make.

Let us make a break and a diversion here, for a brief moment, by taking from Cotgrave the proverb, "Call fools to counsell by a woodden bell," which was his rendering of "A conseil de fols, cloche de bois." And as his wont ever was, he in the other quarters of his famous good dictionary gave other variants of it: "When loggerheads consult, logs serve for bells;" and "For woodcocks' counsels, woodden bels." And now return we to the Middle Kingdom. The Eastern gong is an instrument which most people would classify at once side by side with the bell; and there is no reason why it should not be the older of the two, especially when we find that in all probability the first gongs were sonorous stones. M. Gustave Dumontier has recently well described the khanh, which is to be met with in every important pagoda of Annam. They are cut from flat calcareous flag-stones of a very fine grain,

Both

and a small boss is left on one side,
where the khanh is struck with a little
wooden hammer. If we dimly per-
ceived tree-worship in the lignea sacra,
we might show here how stone-worship
is very probably to be diagnosed. M.
Dumontier calls it a link between the
bell and the drum, and even an archaic
bell, and fancies it must have preceded
all other musical instruments.
the bell and the sounding-stone, or
khing, are mentioned in the Li Ki,
among the earliest Chinese instru-
ments of music; and "the differently
toned khing" there mentioned must be
the Annamite
of
khanh
differing
diapasons, hung in a frame, and played
upon with the hammer like a har-
monica. Chinese Buddhist priests still
use hand-gongs as bells. Sounding-
stones were also used in the seven-
teenth

century in the Christian churches of Ethiopia; and Vitruvius described a gong or cymbalum as belonging to the Roman water-clocks of his time. In archaic China, bells were used as musical instruments, with drums, at the imperial banquets and at minor sacrifices and official ceremonies. The fabulous Emperor Hwang-Ti was fabled to have made twelve musical month-bells-just the number we have seen ordered from Venice to Constanti

nople-a myth which can be connected with celestial harmony of the annual round.

According to the ancient customs of Amiens the bells of that commune were rung in case of alarm or fire, or to call the people together; and when a town was, as a penalty, deprived of its bells by the king or some great feudal lord, it meant forfeiture not alone of the means of calling, but of the right of holding, a public meeting. While this kind of civil interdict lasted, all public business was either suspended or devolved upon the royal officials, and this condition of affairs only ceased with the town's submission, when it could buy back its "right of belfry."

From Chambers' Journal. CHOPPING OIL IN WEST AFRICA.

Of all the various methods ever devised

by the law makers of civilized nations for the purpose of collecting debts, surely none can approach in simplicity the mode of procedure in vogue in the oil-rivers of western Africa until a very few years ago. "Chopping oil," as it was called, is a term which would convey no meaning to the average commercial man accustomed to the lengthy routine of our English law courts. But West African traders understand it, and many men still amongst us who, fifteen or twenty years ago, resided amidst the miasma-laden swamps fringing the low-lying coast of the Bight of Biafra-such men, when spinning their yarns in congenial company at home in Old England, round a good roaring fire, enjoying their grog and tobacco, recall with a thrill scenes of excitement in which they have participated when "chopping." It is a rule with merchants when engaging the services of an agent to take charge of one of their factories on the coast, to insert a clause in the agreement stipulating that he shall give no "trust"-that is, commercial credit-to any of the natives with whom he may do business, and providing that, in the event of his doing so, his employers shall hold a lien upon his salary, commission, or other emoluments, to the extent of any loss which may be incurred by his infringement of instructions. When entering into this arrangement, both parties to the agreement, at the time of which I write, knew that under the then existent conditions, trade could not possibly be carried on without a large amount of "trust" being continually given out; and therefore it behoved the trader to find some simple but tolerably efficient method of recovering his out-standing accounts prior to the expiration of his term of service. So as soon as it became known that he was about to return home, every chief who was indebted to him packed up his belong

1 In these words khing and khanh we obviously find our own word gong, which is generally brought by etymologists from that very compoundings, assembled his men, and took him

speech, the Malayan.

self and them off to his "barracoon," or

farm, where his slaves were bred, and his produce, palm-oil, ebony, etc., was collected. These "barracoons" it was the fortune of very few Englishmen to be allowed to visit, for it was obviously of the first importance to the native chief that the whereabouts and resources of his "barracoon" should remain a secret.

However, the white traders found a way out of the difficulty. By appealing to the king's cupidity, they introduced a system enabling them to get their "trust" in expeditiously, furnishing at the same time a new and exciting sport, and giving his sable majesty the means of considerably augmenting his private purse. Say Mr. So-and-So is desirous of closing his "venture" (the name applied to his term of agency) and return to civilization for a spell. In the first place he ceases to give any of his cargo out on trust, and this step at once proclaims his intentions to his astute debtors, who hurry off up-country at top speed. He now goes to the king, and for a varying amount (calculated at about five per cent, upon the value of the trust he has out) purchases a “ju-ju,” or “fetish," which confers upon him the rights and privileges of a chief. As such rights depend in a general way upon the might of each chief, those of the white man, supported as they are by the combined strength of the whole European community, are practically incontestable. He now levies upon any native produce he may find afloat, on the river or tributary creeks, that is not actually under the protection of another white man-that is, not already along side a trading ship, or a traders' wharf. He takes forcible possession, often only after a desperate struggle, carefully tests and measures the oil so distrained upon, and gives the owner an order for the same quantity upon one of his absent debtors. This order the victimized native executes himself by force if he is powerful enough, otherwise he takes it to the king, who transacts the business for him, charging a "custom" or commission, equal to ten per cent. It occasionally happened that two white men would

be "chopping" at the same time, and then the excitement was fast and furious as the rivals scoured the river and creeks at nights in their efforts to secure oil. The operations frequently extend over several months, inasmuch as the natives would get wary in looking after their goods. Betting ran high as to the success of the rival traders.

F. HARVEY MAJOR.

From Natural Science

STUDY OF A SWISS AVALANCHE.

A summary of the report made by Professors Heim, Forell, and Chodat on the great Gemmi Pass avalanche of September 11, 1895, given in the detailed description of the results of the catastrophe made by men of good standing in the scientific world, is of great value. The avalanche was caused primarily by the splitting away of the lower parts of the Altels glacier.

The abstract says: "On reaching the foot of the Altels, the avalanche, which up to this point must have consisted of one vast moving block of ice, measuring one and a quarter million of cubic metres [four million cubic feet], was reduced to fragments, at the same time that the heat generated by the shock converted these into a semi-fluid condition. Among the débris were to be seen some blocks of considerable size, but only a few exceeded two metres (six and one-half feet) in diameter. With the velocity acquired in its descent, this river of ice rushed across the pasturage and up the western slope of the valley to a height of thirteen hundred feet along the rocky wall of the Weissfluhgrat. Not being completely able to surmount this barrier, the main mass came surging back-like a vast sea wave recoiling from the cliffs-with such force that some of it returned to a height of one hundred feet up the eastern side. Isolated blocks, however, were hurled clear over the ridge into the adjoining valley, the Uschinenthal.

"The avalanche was preceded by a

« AnteriorContinuar »