John Leo, an ancient traveller, who wrote about his perils and adventures in “his nine bookes,” says, regarding his experience of Africa, that “of Apes there are divers and sundry kinds, those which have tayles being called in the African tongue _Manne_, and those which have none _Babuini_. They are found in the woods of Mauritania, and upon the mountains of Bugia and Constantia. They live upon grasse, and come and goe in great companies to feed in the cornfields; and one of their companie, which standeth centinelle or keepeth watch and ward upon the borders, when he espyeth the husbandmen comming he cryeth out, and giveth, as it were, an alarm to his fellows, who every one of them flee immediately into the next woods, and betake themselves to the trees. The shee Apes carry their whelpes upon their shoulders, and will leape with them in that sort from one tree to another.” This author, although he probably mixed up other Monkeys with his _Babuini_, gives the key to the derivation of the word baboon, which has been the subject of keen controversy amongst those who are curious in such matters. _Papio_ is the common term applied to these animals by the writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: it is “dog latin” for _Babbo_, which in modern language would be rendered _Papa_, and _Babuino_ is the diminutive of _Babbo_. Doubtless these terms bear some important and hidden reference to the opinions of the African races upon their relationship and connection with the clever Apes, and upon their appreciation of the paternal habits of the patriarchs of the great companies who not only stand “centinelle,” but instil good discipline into the younger members of the family. But long before John Leo lived, these _Babuini_ had been noticed and critically observed by Greek and Roman naturalists, and had received, on account of their especial character--their dog-shaped muzzle and head--the name Cynocephali, or Dog-headed Apes. The word comes from the Greek, and was frequently applied to Dog-headed people as well as Apes, and it is very applicable, for the whole aspect of the head, and especially of the prolonged snout, cut short at the end in the Ape, greatly resembles that of some Dogs. Earlier still, the ancient Egyptians engraved its figure in stone, made metal images of it, drew it on papyrus, and even made mummies of their dead bodies. Hermopolis was especially the city devoted to the worship of the Dog-headed, for in those early days such was their grandeur in Egyptian eyes, and such the folly of mankind. Symbolism was carried to an excess, its foundations being as mysterious as meaningless, and it therefore came to pass that the Dog-headed were mixed up with literature and astronomy.