"We had walked about four hours, and began to feel very tired, when the
day dawned, and then we looked out for a place to conceal ourselves in.
We soon found a cave with a narrow entrance, large enough inside to
hold half-a-dozen of such lads as we were, and we crawled in. It was
quite dry, and, as we were very tired, we lay down with our heads on
our bundles, intending to take a nap; but we had hardly made ourselves
comfortable and shut our eyes, when we heard such a screaming and
barking that we were frightened out of our lives almost. We could not
think what it could be. At last Hastings peeped out, and began to
laugh; so Homer and I looked out also, and there we saw about one
hundred and fifty large baboons leaping and tumbling about in such a
way as I never saw; they were bigger than we were - indeed, when they
stood on their hind legs they were much taller, and they had very large
white tusks. Some of them were females, with young ones on their backs,
and they were just as active as the males. At last they played such
antics, that we all burst out into a loud laugh, and we had not ceased
when we found the grinning face of one of the largest of those brutes
close to our own. He had dropped from the rock above us, like magic. We
all three backed into the cave, very much frightened, for the teeth of
the animal were enormous, and he looked very savage. He gave a shrill
cry, and we perceived all the rest of the herd coming to him as fast as
they could. I said that the cave was large enough to hold six of us;
but there was a sort of inner cave which we had not gone into, as the
entrance was much smaller. Homer cried out, `Let us go into the inside
cave - we can get in one by one;' and he backed in; Hastings followed
with his bundle, and I hurried in after him just in time; for the
baboons, who had been chattering to each other for half a minute, came
into the outer cave just as I crawled into the inner. Five or six of
them came in, all males, and very large. The first thing they did was
to lay hold of Homer's bundle, which they soon opened - at once they
seized his provisions and rammed them into their pouches, and then they
pulled out the other things and tore them all to pieces. As soon as
they had done with the bundle, two of them came towards the inner cave
and saw us. One put his long paw in to seize us; but Hastings gave him
a slash with his knife, and the animal took his paw out again fast
enough. It was laughable to see him hold out his hand to the others,
and then taste the blood with the tip of his tongue, and such a
chattering I never heard - they were evidently very angry, and more
came into the cave and joined them; then another put in his hand, and
received a cut just as before. At last, two or three at once tried to
pull us out, but we beat them all off with our knives, wounding them
all very severely. For about an hour they continued their attempts, and
then they went away out of the cave, but remained at the mouth
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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