The Baboons, symbolical of learning, the observers of the moon in eclipse, and the companions of the bacchanalian jug, once so esteemed, worshipped, and mummified by the ancient Egyptians, have terribly fallen in social and religious reputation on the very spot of their former glories. In modern Egypt they may be seen in some houses where, at a fanciful kind of banquet, they have to sit around the room holding torches. And right bad torch-bearers they are, for every now and then some Baboon becomes aggressive, or some guest has a nice piece on his plate for which the Baboon longs, and the consequences are a departure of the light from its perpendicular, a slight motion amongst the row of curious candelabra, and oftentimes such disorder as can only be remedied by the timely application of the discipline of the stick. They are carried about to do tricks, and brutalised in every way. [Illustration: VILLAGE IN NUBIA.] Mansfield Parkyns asserts that the cleverness of these Baboons depends in some measure upon their power of reason, and not entirely on that instinct with which all animals are endowed, and which serves them only to procure the necessaries of life and to defend themselves against their enemies. In proof he relates an incident, of which he was an eye-witness. “At Khartûm, the capital of the provinces of Upper Nubia, I saw a man showing a large male and two females of this breed, who performed several clever tricks at his command. I entered into conversation with him as to their sagacity, the mode of teaching them, and various other topics relating to them. Speaking of his male Monkey, he said that he was the most dexterous thief imaginable, and that every time he was exhibited he stole dates and other provisions sufficient for his food for the day. In proof of this he begged me to watch him for a few minutes. I did so, and presently the keeper led him to a spot where a date-seller was sitting on the ground with his basket beside him. Here his master put him through his evolutions, and although I could perceive that the Monkey had an eye to the fruit, yet so completely did he disguise his intentions, that no careless observer would have noticed it. He did not at first appear to care about approaching the basket, but gradually brought himself nearer and nearer, till at last he got quite close to the owner. In the middle of one of his feats he suddenly started up from the ground on which he was lying stretched out like a corpse, and uttering a cry as if in pain or rage, fixed his eyes full on the face of the date-seller, and then, without moving the rest of his body, stole as many dates as he could hold in one of his hind hands. The date man, being stared out of countenance, and his attention diverted by this extraordinary movement, knew nothing about the theft till a bystander told him of it, and then he joined heartily in the laugh that was raised against him. The Monkey