These Baboons live a very peculiar life in the neighbourhood of Angola, a Portuguese settlement on the western coast of Africa. Instead of delighting in the dense woods and glades of the tropical country close by, where fruit, nuts, and roots exist in vast abundance, and where water is most plentiful, they prefer to inhabit a hilly district which is much cut up in all directions by deep dry gullies, and grand rocky ravines. The country is badly supplied with vegetation, and water is very scarce. There are a few prickly shrubs, a few roots of grass, and certain kinds of thick club-stemmed dwarf shrubs all bearing a few leaves, only during the few months of the year in which rain falls. During the rest of the year nothing is seen but bare rock and scorched leafless firewood. At distances far apart, water only exists in deep dry gullies under the sand. In the neighbourhood of the rivers on that part of the coast vegetation is most luxuriant, but the Monkeys prefer the arid country, living principally on the root and stem of one of the most extraordinary plants in the world--the Welwitschia. [Illustration: SKULL OF THE ANUBIS BABOON.] The dog-like jaws of these Apes are very useful in gnawing the exposed roots of these plants, and they manage to nibble them just as a Sheep does a turnip. When thirsty they seek for water, and in company with Zebras and other animals excavate or scrape holes in the sand until it is found over the hard sub-rock. They are very wary, and usually assemble in troops of fifteen or more, and when they move about they send forward one or two who act as scouts, and give signals to the main body about what is going on in front. Some time since a man opened a well at some copper-mines on the hills, and he soon found that the Baboons knew what he had done, for they came down to drink in bodies of thirty or forty. They run very fast and on all-fours in a kind of sideway gallop, and the little ones ride on the backs of their dams, holding very tight and safely. It appears that there is some discipline going on amongst them when they are in bodies, for if a scout should happen not to signal danger or whatever is interesting to the whole band, the rest set upon him, and give him a good thrashing.