Apes and Monkeys: Their Life and LanguageGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
Apes and Monkeys: Their Life and Language
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Apes; Monkeys; Sound production by animals; Speech
Moses soon learned to adjust the curtain and go to bed without my
aid. He would lie in bed in the morning until he heard me or the boy
stirring about the cage, when he would poke his little black head out
and begin to jabber for his breakfast. Then he would climb out and come
to the cage to see what was going on. He was not confined at all, but
quite at liberty to go about in the forest, climb the trees and bushes,
and have a good time of it. He was jealous of the boy, and the boy
was jealous of him, especially when it came to a question of eating.
Neither of them seemed to want the other to eat anything that they
mutually liked, and I had to act as umpire in many of their disputes
on that grave subject, which seemed to be the central thought of both
of them. I frequently allowed Moses to dine with me, and I never knew
him to refuse, or to be late in coming, on such occasions; but his
table etiquette was not of the best order. I gave him a tin plate and
a wooden spoon. He did not like to use the latter, but seemed to think
that it was pure affectation for any one to eat with such an awkward
thing. He always held it in one hand while he ate with the other or
drank his soup out of the plate. It was such a task to get washing done
in that part of the world, that I resorted to all means of economy in
that matter, and for a tablecloth I used a leaf of newspaper, when I
had one. To tear that paper afforded Moses an amount of pleasure that
nothing else would, and in this act his conduct was more like that of
a naughty child than in anything else he did, When he would first
take his place at the table, he would behave in a nice and becoming
manner; but having eaten till he was quite satisfied, he usually became
rude and saucy. He would slyly put his foot up over the edge of the
table, and catch hold of the corner of the paper, meanwhile watching
me closely, to see if I was going to scold him. If I remained quiet,
he would tear the paper just a little and wait to see the result. If
no notice was taken of that, he would tear it a little more, but keep
watching my face to see when I observed him. If I raised my finger
to him, he quickly let go, drew his foot down, and began to eat. If
nothing more was done to stop him, the instant my finger and eyes were
dropped, that dexterous foot was back on the table and the mischief
was resumed with more audacity than before. When he carried his fun
too far, I made him get down from the table and sit on the floor. This
humiliation he did not like, at best; but when the boy grinned at him
for it, he would resent it with as much temper as if he had been poked
with a stick. He certainly was sensitive on this point, and evinced an
undoubted dislike to being laughed at.
[Illustration: NATIVE CARRIER BOY (From a Photograph.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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