Monkey

“ The little gray monkey, with its venerable looking black face fringed with a sunburst of white hair, would be tied to an old umbrella of the Sairey Gamp pattern, and would sit upon it as the small boy carried it along the trails on his shoulder, like a musket. Sometimes when the sun was strong the umbrella would be raised to shield the monkey's eyes, which could not stand the fierce glare incident to a long march upon sun-baked trails. ”

“ He would come up slyly without his lamp and vigorously pinch his companion, inventing a mischievous monkey's tricks, with his yellow hair, his large ears, his lean muzzle, lit up by little green eyes shining in the darkness. ”

“ A monkey has perhaps been seen overhead springing from bough to bough, or sitting nibbling the fruit of some forest tree, or it may be an edible bird with flesh as tough as its plumage is gorgeous, that watches us till the gun booms out and the creature is brought down. For a moment it struggles in the river, then with a sudden splash, a man is swimming with powerful strokes towards the prey which he a moment later lands in the canoe, while the rest look approvingly on at their prospective meal. ”

“ While on the spit the monkey appears in a sitting position, with its head upward, and its long tail hanging along the sapling,—just as if it were still living, and in one of its most natural attitudes, clinging to the branch of a tree! ”

“ A performing monkey divides the honors and pennies with the rest of the entertainers. Not far away an acrobat, in flesh-colored tights, lies upon the carpeted ground and tosses a lad, dressed in spangled thin clothes, into the air, catching him upon his foot again as he comes down, and twirling him so rapidly that the boy becomes invisible. ”

“ As a contrast to the wild beasts, I went to see the monkeys, who lived in a fine large house all to themselves. Here was every variety, from the great ugly chimpanzee to the funny little fellows who played like boys, and cut up all sorts of capers. A mamma sat tending her baby, and looking so like a little old woman that I laughed till the gray monkey with the blue nose scolded at me. ”

“ It was the very littlest monkey who thought of a plan to help the biggest monkey out of his plight. The monkeys were to climb up into the biggest tree and pile themselves one, on top of another until they made a pyramid of monkeys. The monkey with the very loudest voice of all was to be on top and he was to shout his very loudest to the sun and ask the sun to come and help the biggest monkey out of his dreadful difficulty. ”

“ A sad-faced monkey with the world-weariness of ages in its eyes, gibbered and chattered on a branch above her or occupied itself sufficiently in frightening, with sly malice, the bluejays and magpies which exchanged raucous comments on its behaviour. ”

“ IF you have lived in cities and have walked in the park on a summer afternoon, you have perhaps seen, blinking in a corner of his iron cage, a huge, grotesque kind of monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin below his eyes and a bright purple underbody. This monkey is a true monster. ”

“ One day one of the monkeys came down from the tree and ran full of excitement across the plain, now scrambling along like a man on all fours, then erect like a dog running on its hind legs, while its tail, with nothing to catch hold of, wriggled about like a snake when its head is under foot. He came to a place where a number of oxen were grazing, and some horses, ostriches, deer, goats, and pigs. 'Friends all,' cried the monkey, grinning like a skull, and with staring eyes round as dollars, 'great news! ”

“ One sees in that vivid world the watchful monkey ever ready to swoop down upon the tempting tail-feathers of his hereditary foe: one sees the canny parrot ever prepared for his rapid attack, and ever eager to make him pay with five joints of his tail for his impertinent interference with an unoffending fellow-citizen of the arboreal community. ”

“ The monkey, as Mercury, as an intermediate and mediating form between two heroic similar animals, comes near to the knowing fox, the reddish colour of which (as well as of the bear) it partakes of. It is no longer the pure fair sun of day, and it is not yet the black monster of night; it is too black to be red, and too red to be black; it has [Pg 120] all the cunning of the devils, and is acquainted with all the habits of the saints. The monkey, the imitator of man (a Darwinist would say his progenitor) , partakes, like man, of the nature of the brutish demon and of the intelligent god. ”

“ The little black palm holds the nuts for a second, and then the monkey crams them into its cheek, which makes a sort of pouch, and, retiring to the top of the cage, cracks them one by one, throwing down the shells just as a boy would do. They are very human the monkeys; you cannot help feeling all the time they know a great deal more than they pretend. Have you ever looked into a monkey's eyes? ”

“ And if we wonder how they have gained their quick mischievous intelligence in those quiet pathless forests, we must remember that though a grasping hand and foot seem at first sight of very little importance, yet by means of them the monkey moves rapidly from place to place, swinging, leaping, running, and climbing along the boughs, which are its paths from tree to tree. ”

“ The monkey is a sacred animal in this region, and is never molested or killed, because the people believe devoutly that the souls of their ancestors now occupy these degraded forms, and anticipate that they themselves must, sooner or later, be transformed in like manner; a future as cheerless for the black as the spirit-rapper’s heaven is for the whites. ”

“ The monkey gave the signal, and they all came upon the man together,—branches, birds, squirrels, and monkey,—and with such a screaming, chirruping, chattering, and fluttering, that the man was frightened away out of the woods ”

“ To discuss monkeys at all has therefore become a bold undertaking, for, in speaking of them, one runs a risk either of degrading the reputed ancestor, or, through him, of offending the supposed descendants—to say nothing of the inevitable abuse of the most pitiable kind which ill-mannered fanatics, blindly struggling against the spirit of the age, hurl at him who ventures to utter the word monkey. ”

“ ANECDOTES OF THE APE
While men like to have the monkey for a pet, the monkey imitates them by having pets of its own. It has a fancy for this and likes to have something or some animal under its care. It may be a doll, a guinea pig, a white rat, or anything to which it takes a fancy. This was the case with a monkey we are told of, which was very fond of nursing. ”

“ In the great Zoological Gardens we found specimens of all the animals the world produces, I think, including a dromedary, a monkey ornamented with tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair—a very gorgeous monkey he was—a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a beak like a powder horn and close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. ”

“ Now the monkey was as fond of oranges as any of the birds, and when he saw a man standing in the tree where the largest and sweetest oranges grew, he spoke to him at once. 'You man,' he said rudely, 'throw me down that big orange up there, or I will throw a stone at you.' The wax figure took no notice of this request, so the monkey, who was easily made angry, picked up a stone, and flung it with all his force. ”

“ Now, my monkey is the most pleasant and best-tempered one in the world, and the amusement and delight of all who see him, as many on Waterloo-bridge can testify. Whenever this monkey goes near the dog, it howls at him. So the monkey plays with him, pulling his tail and nibbling his ears and hair, and biting his toe, and so on. Anything that’ll play with the monkey, it’s all right, and they are the best friends in the world; but if they show any fear, then it’s war, for the monkey won’t be put upon. Now, there’s another pup in the same cage which the monkey is just as fond of. ”

“ The trees above us were literally alive with monkeys, and the curiosity of some of them about us was so great that they came down on "monkey ropes" and branches for the fun of touching the roof of the boat with their hands while they hung by their tails. ”

“ In the eleventh story of the same book, a monkey upon a tree is the friend of one of the two crepuscular monsters, and this monster invites it to eat the man; the man, however, retaliates, and fiercely bites its long tail; the monkey then believes this man to be stronger than the monster, and the latter believes the man who holds the monkey by the tail with his teeth to be the monster of the other twilight, i.e., the morning twilight. Here the monkey is confounded with the fox, which is a mythical animal of a specially crepuscular nature, and which also comes to ruin on account of its tail. ”

“ But just watch him on a tree or a perch, or clinging to the wires of his cage. He's as much at home in a tree as a bird or a squirrel.
Even if a monkey cannot talk, he can tell you very plainly where he lived when he was at home—that is, whether he is an Old World monkey from over the ocean, or a New World monkey from South America. The monkeys in a Zoo always come to the netting when visitors appear, for they are very curious and want to see everything that is going on. ”

“ It is impossible to speak with disrespect of animals having such antecedents; and, besides, this monkey before you knows perhaps a secret that science cannot find out — the secret of the Sources of the Nile. As he passes by, a tail hanging down from the perch above him attracts his notice, and pulling it, he brings down upon himself a monkey smaller than itself, which had thought itself concealed, but had forgotten its dependent tail. ”

“ We are introduced to a solemn monkey, who salaams gravely three times, and then waits to be asked to shake hands, which he does with great ceremony. We see porcupines, black swans and antelopes, and we hear, at the peril of never hearing anything afterwards, the noisy cranes. ”

“ It was indeed the monkey, and during the next ten minutes it seemed to the boys that they ran over every square foot of that pasture, scaring the cows, and tiring themselves, until the frightened little horse was penned up in one corner, and his disagreeable rider was taken from him. ”

“ The monkey gave the image of wax a push with his body. His body remained caught fast in the wax.
"O, peddler boy, peddler boy," the monkey shouted, "let go my body! Let go my body and my two feet and my two hands or I'll call all the other monkeys to help me!" The image of wax did not let go.
Then the monkey made such an uproar with his cries and shouts that very soon monkeys came running from all directions. There were big monkeys and little monkeys and middle-sized monkeys. A whole army of monkeys had come to the aid of the biggest monkey. ”

“ The monkey appreciation of degrees in human development is as alert and vigilant as the limits which human instinct sets between themselves and the latest prodigy of infant humanity.
255 THE LARGER MONKEYS. Though most of the best specimens of monkey beauty belong to the New World, the richness and variety of the colouring of one or two of the African species is not surpassed by that of any American species. Yet the ornamental value of their skins is little known, even among those professionally engaged in the fur trade. ”

“ The monkey was led by means of a long, thin rope, attached to a sort of harness about his neck and shoulders. By going to the rear edge of the back building they could readily swing him over to the fire-escape, while by ascending to the top of the attic roof overlooking the court, they could in the same way enable him to reach the other window. The monkey had been trained to carry objects in his mouth. This accounts for the row of indentations on the letters found in your room. ”

“ The reader may judge of the mother's feelings, when, on turning round, she beheld the animal in the act of transporting her child apparently up to the top of the mast. The monkey was a very large one, and so strong and active, that, while it grasped the infant firmly with one arm, it climbed the shrouds nimbly by the other, totally unembarrassed by the weight of its burden. ”

“ On the lid of a silver box an adventure of a monkey is represented in raised work. Pursued by a snake, the monkey has taken refuge in a cranny beneath a projecting rock. The snake sits on the top. He cannot see the monkey, but he catches sight of his reflection in the water below the stone. The monkey, too, sees the image of the snake, and each is now waiting for the other. ”

“ The Calvinists illustrate their belief by a single illuminating word, Cat-hold, and the Arminians by another, Monkey-hold. Could you find better illustrations? The cat takes up the kitten and carries it in its mouth; the kitten is passive, the cat does everything. But the little monkey holds on to its mother, and clings with might and main. Those who have watched the "cat-hold" in the house, and the "monkey-hold" out in the jungle, can appreciate the accuracy of these two illustrations. ”

“ When the child is weary with running and sudden turns, which have called for marvelous dexterity of accommodation on the part of the monkey, the chain is hauled up, with the animal clinging worriedly to it, and he is flung far out into the fringe of waves, to pick his shivering way up again and again from the water. ”