It was "antipathy to Darwin," they told me, which made a reverend
missionary, in the last century, exhort some neighbours of ours, some
Christian Karens in Burma, to "shoot at sight" the monkeys and little
apes that occasionally took a few plantains from their gardens. The
loss of fruit could be minimised in other, gentler ways, as their
Burman neighbours showed them. The "heathens" were so "benighted" that
they spoke of the trifling losses caused by the apes exactly as the
poet Burns spoke of the depredations of the little mouse, whose nest
his plough destroyed--
"I doubtna, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! ...
I'll get a blessing with the lave (what is left),
And never miss't!"
It is a wonderful coincidence, which I know for a fact, that the
Burmese Buddhist gardeners used phrases expressing similarly these
identical sentiments.
The Christians were taught to feel differently. So it was lucky for
her that it was in a "heathen" garden that the mother of our heroine
was trespassing one day in 1892. Running from the sound of the
approaching gardener, she escaped with difficulty, and left her girl
behind. Poor frightened little mother, what a loss was there! You
never knew the fate of your child. You never saw her any more at all.
The gardener carried the captured one in a basket to my wife, who
agreed to adopt her, and named her Charlotte, or "Charlie" Darwin. For
immediate company of her own size, she had a nice tabby, with whom she
became quickly familiar. The little cats in the woods survive by
haunting the trees, and doubtless live on terms of neutrality with the
monkeys and the apes. The big leopard is the common enemy of both the
little cats and the monkeys. When once a suckling leopard, the size of
a kitten, was given us, and my wife tried to coax a tabby to be wet
nurse, and the cats of the house were all standing round observant of
the stranger, the suckling gave a little leopard's growl, and
instantly the cats were panic-stricken, and fled to the roof, and
stayed there long after the departure of the suckling, till hunger
brought them down. The universal welcome these same cats extended to
Charlie showed that her tribe was considered friendly. The first thing
I remember of her, perhaps, also, her earliest recollection of our
house, was her cheerfully dipping her nose in the cats' dish, and
sharing their milk.
She never needed a wet nurse, being more than half-grown when we
received her. In fact, our neighbour had caught her pulling plantains.
Among the common monkeys, the anxious mothers seem to have a rule of
thumb to keep their young within reach, by using the tails as French
nursemaids use the leading-strings. "The length of your tail, my
child--no farther shall you go." But our Charlie was of the human-like
species, and no more had a tail than the reader himself. Besides, she
was old enough to be out of leading-strings. Mother and daughter had
been alike absorbed in the fruit, and in an absent-minded way had let
the gardener surprise them. He said he had never even flung a stone at
a monkey, and always been content to chase them away. So Charlie
Darwin and her mother had doubtless been presuming on his good-nature,
as females are apt to do. But the sight of pretty Charlie tempted him,
and he knocked her down, with a clod of earth, he said, and made her
prisoner unhurt.
She soon grew to her full height, swelling visibly from week to week,
almost from day to day, but the full height of her tribe is below army
requirements. She was never much above two feet. Next to the size, the
chief difference between her and the reader, if the reader is a girl,
was that her arms were proportionally longer and stronger, and her
legs shorter and weaker. Her Latin name was Hylobates Hooluck; but, as
she never went to school, much less to college, it was never used. And
nobody spoke of her as a gibbon. Plain "Charlie Darwin" she was always
called, and seemed to like it.
She was not proud, though, if she had been, she might have been
excused. The brightness of her face made her a centre of attraction.
She seemed to dress well; for though she was never insulted with
humanly manipulated rags, her beautiful fur appeared to be like a
perfectly fitting black satin dress, of Oriental cut, and gave Miss
Charlie Darwin the look of a modest lady, at home in a drawing-room.
Her sparkling eyes, like moist beads, were surmounted by big white
eyebrows. These set off her features so well that one could understand
why European ladies, in more leisurely days than ours, took time to
mark their faces with beauty spots.
When moving or standing about in the drawing-room, she tottered at
times, and would put her hand on anything convenient to support
herself, as many an old lady likes to do; and often she would sit
down, with a sigh of pleasure. But Charlie did not sit long anywhere.
Her restless agility showed her youth. At tea-time, in particular, she
was very much alive. She was devoted to fruit; but her natural good
manners, some said, her female curiosity, said others, made her sample
everything. She neglected the plain bread but, like other young
people, had an almost undiscriminating love for cakes. Shortbread was
an exception. She was very partial to it; and it was rare fun to give
her none and keep it out of easy reach, and watch the result. She sat
demurely unconcerned, as a woman can, till she supposed she was
unobserved. Then swiftly and softly she ran to where it was, never
taking her eyes off the company, as if too interested in what they
were saying to think of anything else; and deftly took the shortbread
and resumed her seat, as if it were a matter of no consequence.
The only imperfection in her table manners was her way of drinking
from a saucer, lapping her tea as the cats lapped milk. In vain my
wife showed her a better example. Habits of that kind are easier to
learn than to unlearn; and, after all, men also drink in that way at
times, under primitive conditions, lapping of the water with the
tongue, as a dog lappeth. (See Judges vii, 5.)