Still, notwithstanding their cleverness and courage, these baboons, with their long hind legs and dog-like faces, running on all fours, travelling in troops, and feeding in the corn-fields and meadows, remind us more of four-footed animals than any other of the monkey tribe, and we must turn again to dense forests and tangled jungles to find those large and tailless apes which have risen highest in monkey life. If we go back in imagination to those days when the wild beasts of the forests, the strong elephants and rhinoceroses, the fierce tigers, lions, and leopards, had not yet been persecuted by man, but roamed in great numbers over the whole tropical and temperate world, we can easily imagine that a set of animals which could climb along the tops of the lofty trees in impenetrable forests would have a great advantage, even though elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffaloes were crashing through the underwood below, and the fierce leopard was on the watch for them when they ventured to descend. With their tree-loving life, the monkeys would have every chance of escape, climbing along the topmost boughs with wonderful rapidity, to find refuge in gloomy recesses where they might bring up their young in safety. And as they grew in strength and intelligence, gradually retiring to the thickly wooded part of Southern Asia and tropical Africa, they might even succeed in driving out their opponents, as the Gorilla is said to have driven the elephant from the Gaboon country, because he interfered with the trees which he makes his special home. So we must go to such tangled virgin forests as those of Sumatra, Borneo, and Malacca, to find the long-armed tailless Gibbons,[157] which once wandered over Europe, but now roam no further than Southern Asia, where they swing themselves along from branch to branch by means of their lengthy arms, which are so out of proportion to their legs that when they stand upright they can touch the ground with their knuckles. These gibbons are gentle creatures, with not too much brain, but wonderfully elegant and agile, which is more than can be said for the intelligent Orangutan[158] or Mias which wanders in the same forest. He has shorter arms, only reaching to the ankle, and he climbs half upright from tree-top to tree-top, grasping the boughs and swaying slowly onwards, or holds on by his toe-thumbs while he stretches up to the more slender branches to gather the fruit and young buds.