THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS; OR, NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE ADVENTURES OF POLYDORUS MARASQUIN, THE MAN AMONG THE
MONKEYS.]
_BEETON’S BOY’S OWN LIBRARY._
THE
MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS;
OR,
NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED
_THE PHILOSOPHER AND HIS MONKEYS_,
_THE PROFESSOR AND THE CROCODILE_,
AND OTHER
STRANGE STORIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS,
MANY OF THEM BY
GUSTAVE DORÉ.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1873.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Origin of my family name of Marasquin.—Mistake in this respect
on the part of my ambitious Grandfather.—My Ancestors’
profession honourable, but dangerous.—Mine the same.—A Tiger
deprives me of my Father, whose Business I carry on.—My
Fondness for Animals, and my skill in stuffing them.—The
terrible Tricks which they play me.—The Malay Pirates more
untamable than my Animals.—The English Stations founded to
destroy them are devastated by Yellow Fever and something
else.—Vice-Admiral Campbell visits my Menagerie.—The rare and
curious Animals it contained.—Baboons and Chimpanzees.—Passions
and rivalries.—An Ape as wicked as a Human Being.—My Mother
perishes in the Flames.—I determine on a voyage to Oceania.—I
charter a Chinese Junk, and find it manned by Pirates.—We
encounter a fearful Tempest _Page 9_
CHAPTER II.
We are Shipwrecked.—I alone escape.—I find myself on an unknown
island.—A strange form appears to me and vanishes.—A deluge of
Apes.—I am cudgelled with a rattan cane.—Am saved at length by
my cravat.—I am parched with thirst.—I discover water.—Four
thousand of us drink in company.—Ingenious way of procuring
fruit from the top of a tall tree.—Two valets-de-chambre, such
as are seldom seen in Europe.—I miraculously escape their
care _Page 27_
CHAPTER III.
I am attacked with delirium.—I set out on a journey of
discovery in the dead of night.—I encounter a boa, and a bat
with gigantic wings.—I reach the sea shore.—Simplicity of the
oyster; acuteness of the Ape.—I hoist a signal, and then fall
asleep from sheer exhaustion _Page 44_
CHAPTER IV.
I have a very agitated dream.—During my waking moments I
unconsciously commit a murder.—At night time I encounter
a strange apparition in the middle of the forest.—A great
light illumines the air.—I advance towards it, buoyed up with
hope.—It suddenly disappears.—The dawn discloses to me a most
singular sight.—I witness the proceedings of a court-martial
the members composing which have each four hands.—Disgraceful
corruption of justice.—Ridiculous parody on the manners and
institutions of the human race _Page 52_
CHAPTER V.
The court-martial breaks up.—I secretly follow the members of
it.—I distinguish some houses between the trees, and believe
myself to be at last among my fellow-men.—My hopes are crushed
by discovering the devastated condition of the settlement.—I
meet with Saïmira and Mococo, the latter in captivity.—I
recognise in the president of the court-martial one of my two
baboons of Macao.—This discovery troubles me, the more so
when I find that Karabouffi’s power is supreme.—Foreseeing
the peril I should be in if recognised by him, I hide myself
in a grotto.—I am visited by Saïmira.—Weariness becomes at
length more intolerable than danger.—The light already seen
reappears.—I leave my retreat in search of it _Page 66_
CHAPTER VI.
Finding a volcano.—New peril to which I am exposed.—The
merchant is recognised by his old merchandise.—Three guttural
cries.—The living garland.—It swings to and fro, and then
performs a furious rotatory movement over the crater of a
blazing volcano.—My thoughts at this moment.—I am flung to the
ground, and swoon away.—On recovering, I am ushered into the
presence of Karabouffi the First, whom I find transformed into
a bird.—Monkey scribes and living telegraphic communication _Page 73_
CHAPTER VII.
Bell-ringing by the Monkeys.—Disorder in Monkey Villas.—Hungry,
I discover stores.—His Majesty in a jar of quinces.—Scrambling
for Nuts.—Monkeys tipsy.—Fear of their intoxicated
revels.—Night falls as I am in the midst of a terrible
uproar.—I discover candles and lucifer matches.—The Monkeys
find them also.—Candle dance by the Apes _Page 83_
CHAPTER VIII.
An energetic pianiste.—Vigorous dancers.—A bevy of quadrumanous
beauties.—The parasol polka.—Amatory tomfooleries.—I am
compelled to take part in a new musical air.—Am commanded to
climb up a tall pole.—Am forced to jump through hoops, throw
somersaults, and cut capers.—Am indebted to Saïmira for a
respite _Page 91_
CHAPTER IX.
I barricade myself in.—I am besieged.—The verandah becomes a
fort.—What I discover at the end of a forgotten room.—Lord
Campbell’s journal.—What this journal says.—The Malay pirates
and the Sultan of Sooloo.—Three hundred junks.—A formidable
hunt.—Death of a mysterious and colossal mandrill.—Explanation
of the white skeleton.—Torture of a man compelled to drink
nothing but excellent old wine.—A poignard stuck in the
sand.—The last _fête_ at the station.—How it terminates.—End
of an unfinished journal _Page 102_
CHAPTER X.
A hundred bottles of champagne not worth a glass of water.—My
clothes leave me.—I commence the combat.—Great fight of a man
against an island full of apes.—The verandah about to fall.—It
does not last any longer.—A skin saves me _Page 118_
CHAPTER XI.
Whence this enchanted skin comes.—I owe to it my life and the
crown.—In what manner I govern.—I learn the fate of the English
station _Page 127_
CHAPTER XII.
Royal happiness troubled by a rent.—I am more and more adored
by my subjects.—A cloud in the sky.—Sinister preoccupation.—My
kingdom for a pair of trousers!—Supreme joy of being an
animal.—My happiness again troubled.—A fatal tear _Page 137_
CHAPTER XIII.
Deliverance.—I see my native land again.—O Macao!—My
immortality _Page 144_
HERR VON SCHLIEFFEN AND HIS MONKEYS 153
THE PROFESSOR AND THE CROCODILE 175
TREE LIFE IN GENERAL, AND MONKEYS IN PARTICULAR 195
THE MONKEY AMONGST MEN, OR THE HOUSE IN REGENT’S PARK 247
MONKEY LEGENDS AND ANECDOTES 287
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Adventures of Polydorus Marasquin, the Man among the
Monkeys _Frontispiece_
PAGE.
Clouds upon clouds of apes, of all forms, colours, and sizes,
clambering up the trees, rolling themselves among the branches
like squirrels, or taking possession of the ground about me 30
Quick as lightning, he seized the branch of cane which I had thrown
on the ground, and before I had time to place myself in a posture
of defence, showered blow after blow on my arms and legs 33
The banks of the lake were covered along their entire length by
those very apes who had so pitilessly tormented, jeered at, and
beaten me 36
While he was speaking, these unfortunate wretches trembled all
over, from head to foot 63
They went to spend their honeymoon in an isolated spot which I
had selected for them 130
After having dug a trench seven feet long, I interred myself
with all possible precautions 132
Covered with my tattered and well-worn skin, but still holding
sufficiently together for me to be taken for a mandrill 147
Bonnet and Macaque Monkeys 252
Rhesus Monkey and Young 253
Anubis Baboon 255
Wanderoo Monkey 255
Black-faced Spider Monkey 259
Squirrel 263
Squirrel Monkey, and Tee-Tee 263
Ring-tailed Lemur 266
The Aye-Aye 268
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS.
CHAPTER I.
Origin of my family name of Marasquin.—Mistake in this respect
on the part of my ambitious Grandfather.—My Ancestors’
profession honourable, but dangerous.—Mine the same.—A Tiger
deprives me of my Father, whose Business I carry on.—My
Fondness for Animals, and my skill in stuffing them.—The
terrible Tricks which they play me.—The Malay Pirates more
untamable than my Animals.—The English Stations founded to
destroy them are devastated by Yellow Fever and something
else.—Vice-Admiral Campbell visits my Menagerie.—The rare and
curious Animals it contained.—Baboons and Chimpanzees.—Passions
and rivalries.—An Ape as wicked as a Human Being.—My Mother
perishes in the Flames.—I determine on a voyage to Oceania.—I
charter a Chinese Junk, and find it manned by Pirates.—We
encounter a fearful Tempest.
I was born at Macao, in China, and am descended from one of those brave
adventurers who, under the leadership of the celebrated Vasco de Gama,
boldly left Lisbon, towards the end of the fifteenth century, to conquer
the Indies.
If I have good reason to congratulate myself on the accuracy of my
pedigree, I have, nevertheless, no plausible grounds for believing that I
am descended from one of those sons of noble families who were attached
by the sole tie of glory to their illustrious chief. My grandfather,
it is true, used sometimes to say that our name of Marasquin was a
corruption of Marascarenhas, one of the greatest of names among those
adventurous Portuguese who followed Vasco de Gama from the banks of the
Tagus to the end of Asia; but I have always had serious doubts upon this
score.
Moreover, my worthy grandfather himself, Nicholas Marasquin, was to my
knowledge never anything more than an industrious trader, established at
Macao. My father, Juan Perez Marasquin, was pretty much the same. To him
I owe this testimony—that the extent of his ambition, during a lifetime,
too short, alas! to my great regret, was simply to pass for an honest
man, a good Christian, and a loyal bird-fancier.
This, then, was his profession; I do not blush for it, although certain
persons, through ignorance, or actuated by jealousy, have sought to
reduce it to the level of a licensed dealer in game and poultry.
Even without descending so low as this, it would still be very unfair to
regard the bird-fancier’s profession—which, by the way, became in later
years my own—as restricted to the mere sale of birds, such as we know
it ordinarily to be followed in Europe. My father possessed in his vast
menagerie one of the finest collections of which the Portuguese Indies
could boast, for it comprised not merely birds, but all kinds of rare and
curious animals. Sumatra, Java, Borneo, New Guinea, were all represented
there by specimens of some of the strangest and most exquisitely formed
creatures which inhabit in their native state the almost impenetrable
forests of the eastern hemisphere. The profession of naturalist, when
exercised on this scale, is really a very lucrative one, for the taste of
the European colonists, and the almost insane passion of the Chinese, for
these interesting products of nature, are matters of notoriety.
To his trade in living animals my father added the art and mystery of
stuffing them when dead, which was not the least lucrative profession
of the two. He had given me lessons in this learned and delicate art of
restoring to defunct birds and quadrupeds not alone the precise forms but
the very attitudes which they affected during lifetime. Thanks to the
counsels of so excellent a demonstrator, I acquired a remarkable skill in
taxidermy; and you will find further on, if you read through this account
of my adventures, that I was indebted to this useful and beautiful
science for my escape from the tragical end which at one period menaced
me.
Our house had prospered for more than a century at Macao. My father, on
succeeding to the collection, added considerably to it, and thanks to the
intelligent care of the good, economical, and devoted woman he espoused,
he managed to raise his establishment to the very highest position in
that particular branch of industry in which he was engaged.
But if this business yields, as I have already said, such rich rewards,
on the other hand it is attended not only with difficulties, but with
perils as well, as I have had only too many opportunities of proving. It
is carried on under conditions of which most people are ignorant. It is
not sufficient for a dealer in animals to purchase a bargain, and then to
sell it again at a profit. It is requisite that he should go the length
of procuring in a wild state those rarer kinds of animals which, when
obtained, are certain to realise a good price. Hence the indispensable
necessity of being at once both merchant and hunter, or rather of being
first of all hunter before becoming merchant.
My father used to go himself to hunt most of the animals in which he
dealt—a laborious kind of occupation, which I, in my turn, learnt to
follow, whilst accompanying him on his expeditions—sometimes to the coast
of China—sometimes to the jungles of the Isle of Hainan, so prolific
in wild animals—sometimes as far as Japan, in spite of the obstacles
and perils of a navigation bravely undertaken in barques of slender
construction, spite of the Malay pirates—those veritable sharks, who
swallow everything that crosses their path; and spite of the cruel
punishments which used formerly to await those whom the Chinese and
Japanese chanced to find trespassing on their sacred territories.
My father was in the habit of bringing back from those distant
expeditions—and later I had the satisfaction of bringing back with
him—panthers, tigers, boas, leopards, and, above all, innumerable
varieties of apes. It was during one of our last hunting expeditions in
the Island of Formosa that my father, assailed by a young tiger, which he
was on the point of enveloping in a net so as to capture it alive, had
half a shoulder and a portion of a thigh carried off by a blow of the
brute’s paw. I had the gratification of defending him and protecting him
from the further rage of the furious creature; and had, moreover, the
satisfaction of carrying him back with me to Macao, though I had not the
happiness of seeing him live. Badly tended by the doctors of the country,
he languished for a couple of years with wounds which they did not know
how to cicatrise, and died at length after undergoing the most frightful
sufferings. Just before he drew his last breath in my arms, he begged of
me not to continue in his profession. I promised him I would not; but as
he had left me nothing else to live upon and to support my poor mother,
and as, to speak frankly, I had no taste for any other kind of pursuit, I
was compelled to break my promise. You will see from the tale which you
are about to peruse the fearful punishment I brought upon myself by so
doing.
I stuck, then, to my father’s business, and, in order to prove to the
valuable connection acquired by long years of good and loyal management
how anxious I was to carry it on with energy, I increased the number of
my examples of rare animals, and sent afar experienced hunters charged to
bring back with them, to the latitudes of the Indies, specimens hitherto
unknown. Being satisfied by long experience that luxury dazzled the eye,
and consequently attracted the attention of buyers, I set to work to
renovate the interior of my bazaar. Bronze and gilding were had recourse
to, to relieve the too apparent simplicity of my cages. An English
cleanliness reigned throughout all parts of the establishment, which, in
the evening, I lighted up with gas, a dazzling novelty in those days for
Macao.
Here I ought to mention a singular trait in my character. I was
remarkably fond of animals at first, by reason of my benevolent
organisation; afterwards, as a natural result of the unremitting study
which I had been obliged to make of their forms, features, movements,
customs, manners, instincts, passions, and intelligence; their sympathies
and antipathies; their caprices, maladies, and affinity, more or less
expressed with man, with a thousand other attributes essentially
belonging to their nature, which is perhaps still more obscure and
mysterious than our own.
I had pushed my observations so far on those particular beings with
whom it is now-a-days maintained we have a certain affinity, that I
could easily recognise among them those whose instinctive dispositions
corresponded in a measure with our own, and who would have become, for
example, barristers, if any such profession as that of the Bar existed
amongst apes, for they were always gesticulating, haranguing, and
arguing. I recognised again such as would have been doctors, among those
who were continually occupying themselves with the physical condition of
their fellows, examining their tongues, their throats, and the inside of
their eyes; others who would certainly have become comedians, for they
were perpetually making grimaces, and playing and dancing from morning
to night; others again who would have made first-rate astronomers, for
they invariably arranged themselves so as to have the sun always shining
on the tips of their noses. I recognised, moreover, with a similar
infallibility, those who possessed a taste for commerce, apes who made a
point of collecting together all the fruit and corn which fell from the
negligent hands of their fellows, and of piling it up in a corner. In
like manner I distinguished the misers, the spendthrifts, the madcaps,
the bullies, the good fathers and mothers, the mothers given to flirting,
and the incorrigibly bad sons; and particularly thieves of every shade,
from the sharper moving in good society, who cheats at the card-table, to
the more daring robber who takes to the highway. I should have said of
the one, “Here is an ape who would loll in his carriage if he had only a
white cravat;” of the other, that “he would be safe to be hung if he only
happened to wear a coat.”
As apes are far more saleable animals when their natural talent for
imitation is developed by the aid of education, I made a point of putting
most of those in my collection through a course of instruction, the
object of which was to render them more attractive and engaging in the
eyes of intending purchasers. I taught them, for instance, to throw
somersaults, to jump through hoops, to dance, to play the tambourine, to
march, to fence, and to salute in approved military style. Many among
them, I admit, were unwilling scholars, and chafed and fretted under the
tuition they received; some so much so, indeed, that, as is commonly
the case with members of the human family, they could only be persuaded
to prosecute their studies by the lively fear of a little wholesome
correction. All this, however, arose simply from their not knowing so
well as I did what was really for their own advantage.
Spite of the many little tiffs which arose between us in our several
capacities of master and scholars, I conceived, in my character of
naturalist, painter, doctor, philosopher, and instructor, far more
than in my character of merchant, a strong liking for my boarders. I
succeeded, by my powers of penetration, in reading in their eyes their
desires, wants, and thoughts, and almost ended by conversing with them.
In this psychological study I should, without doubt, have attained a
height unknown to the most skilful naturalists of our grand European
museums, if the fatal accident through which my poor father lost his
life had not all at once put an end to my passion for animals. After
this unfortunate calamity it was impossible for me not to see in each
animal of my collection an accomplice of the tiger which had deprived my
parent of existence. This antipathy, day by day growing stronger, caused
me at first to neglect the brutes, and afterwards to punish them with
far more severity than I had hitherto been accustomed to exhibit towards
them. They soon perceived this, since animals have stronger instincts
perhaps than men, and thereupon they repaid me with hatred and spite
for the rigour with which I ordinarily treated them. They became wicked
and vindictive; and I, on my part, became only the more inflexible. A
struggle commenced between us, which was carried to a point when I was no
longer able to rule them except by threats and red-hot bars of iron.
This was the result; if, in order to punish and to tame them, I no longer
allowed any one among them to leave his cage, I was obliged from motives
of prudence to refrain from entering any of their dens. On both sides
there was a permanent state of anger and hostility, and I must say there
was no end to the wicked tricks they played me. The last one they were
guilty of was of so cruel, and indeed terrible a character, that if I
were to pass it over in silence, the origin of my prodigious troubles
would be rendered in a great measure unintelligible. One alone was guilty
of this deed, though all were in a degree parties to it by reason of
their undisguised animosity towards me.
Vice-Admiral Campbell, who at that time was commander of the English
naval station in Oceania, was in the habit, every time he touched at
Macao, of visiting my bazaar, and of making purchases for his aviaries
and ship menageries of such things as parroquets, birds from the Island
of Lugon, or tame tigers, which served to amuse him during his passage
from one island to another, and throughout the long anchorages he was
occasionally compelled to make up some wearisome and disagreeable inlet.
I may here say a few words on the importance of the English stations
in the Chinese and Australian seas. The object of these—which, by the
way, is not always attained—is to protect the lives and properties of
Europeans from the descents of Chinese and Malay pirates, a numerous and
terrible race. These formidable sea-serpents, who are to Oceania what
the Algerians were in former times to the Mediterranean, recognise no
authority under heaven—neither that of the Emperor of China, backed by
his mandarins; nor that of the sultans who reign over some few large
islands, like Borneo and Mindanao; nor even that of the English and Dutch
viceroys, representatives of powerful nations, it is true, but who find
considerable difficulty in making their flags respected in these distant
seas.
The Malay pirates may be said to brave everything, and to be everywhere.
The archipelago of Sooloo, which contains no less than 160 islands, is
entirely peopled by them. At an appointed time they will sail forth over
the waters with a fleet of, perhaps, 500 junks, manned by 5,000 sailors,
and lie in ambuscade for unsuspecting merchantmen. The booty which
they secure they divide among themselves; and the prisoners whom they
take are only set at liberty on the receipt of a considerable ransom:
too frequently they are killed. These water-rats have sometimes pushed
their audacity so far as to make descents in the very midst of such
great centres of commerce as the islands of Sumatra and Java; and on
one occasion they even dared to come and buy powder and ball at Macao.
What is quite as remarkable, too, the merchants of this place did not
hesitate a moment to sell them all the ammunition they required: in this
respect reminding one of those mercenary Dutchmen who, when besieged
by the Spaniards, made a practice each evening of selling to their
adversaries—no doubt at remunerative prices—the cannon-balls which they
had fired against their town during the day. These pirates are apparently
indestructible; they have lasted for centuries as it is, and they bid
fair to last for centuries more.
It is to protect its subjects against the poisoned daggers of these
swarming bandits that England, as I have mentioned above, is constantly
sending forth ships to innumerable points on the sea-coast of China, and
to the interminable shores scattered round about.
These vessels often remain for entire years in localities which are
believed to be menaced with a visit from these formidable corsairs. It is
then that the officers take up their quarters on shore, that tents are
pitched, and houses even are constructed, where naval men can manage to
lodge in something like comfort.
This particular kind of naval campaign is much dreaded by the English
sailors, obliged to contend at the same time against tempests,
pirates, and fevers of every kind and colour; and, above all, with the
wearisomeness arising from the monotonous kind of life they are here
forced to lead, and which may be described as the yellow fever of the
mind.
Vice-Admiral Campbell, who commanded, as I have already said, at one of
these stations, had hoisted his pennant on board Her Majesty’s steam
frigate Halcyon.
The admiral was preparing to leave the roads of Macao on the very day
that he came with all his staff—captains, lieutenants, commanders, and
officers of every grade—to view my menagerie. Some of these gentlemen had
brought their wives with them, whence I concluded that their stay at the
station to which they were about to proceed would be an unusually long
one.
Fortunately, I had received a short time previously some considerable
additions to my stock of animals; and I can truly say that my
establishment at this time was alike worthy of the attention of men of
science and of amateurs. Besides birds from every clime, which enriched
my aviaries, I possessed gazelles from Egypt, bisons from Missouri, goats
from Cashmere, ant-eaters, jaguars, leopards from Senegambia, otters,
polar bears, black panthers, lynxes, moose-deer from Canada, rhinoceroses
with one horn, llamas from Brazil, lions from Bengal, and a magnificent
selection of tigers. But the cream of my collection was its endless
variety of apes: waggish, wicked, shy, wild, grave, pensive, sinister,
intellectual, stupid, melancholy, and grotesque. I had ourang-outangs,
gibbons, baboons, papios, mandrills, wanderoos, monkeys, macaques, patas
monkeys, malbroncks, mangabeys, lemurs, talapoins, cluks, and magots. Of
all these apes, there were four that seemed to divide among themselves
the curiosity of the large party at that moment assembled in my museum.
Firstly, there were two baboons of unequalled strength and ferocity—as
large as men, as intelligent as men, and, I was about to add, as wicked
as men. They made their cage shake again with their violent movements,
they often turned it over even; and, in an excess of anger, would twist
the iron bars through which they made a point of insulting every one that
stopped to gaze at them, as though these stout metal rods were so many
sticks of pliant wax. How was it that visitors generally were so pleased
with them? Could it have been because they were so supremely wicked? I am
half afraid that this was the reason.
The two other apes who divided the sympathies of the visitors with the
big baboons were a male and female chimpanzee, both possessing youth,
and, I may add, even grace. The male chimpanzee was gentle as a young
girl, delicate, sensible, understanding everything, approaching as near
the limits of intelligence as is permitted to a being deprived of the
Divine light of reason. He was fond of children, played with them, and
appeared to have a taste for music, since he invariably left off eating
whenever he heard the sounds of an instrument.
With me he filled the office of a footman. At dinner he held the plates,
and handed round the wine; he even ate at table when I invited him. The
trifling marks of attention which I occasionally paid him made the other
apes jealous, almost to frenzy.
With regard to his companion, who was likewise a young chimpanzee, she
differed from most female apes, who are fond of ribbons, lace, and
embroidered handkerchiefs, and appeared perfectly contented with her own
natural grace and prettiness. She was never so happy as when some one
gave her a beautiful flower, which she would either place behind her ear,
or else regard with looks of melancholy for entire hours.
I had named my two baboons, the one Karabouffi the First, the other
Karabouffi the Second; and I had given to the male chimpanzee the name of
Mococo, and to the female that of Saïmira.
Mococo loved Saïmira very much; and it is quite certain that Saïmira on
her part loved Mococo in return.
Karabouffi the First had also a hidden and terrible love for Saïmira.
Nothing could exceed the black jealousy of this ferocious baboon.
Whenever the two young chimpanzees, who enjoyed the liberty of
perambulating the galleries of the museum, passed in front of his cage,
his terrible claws became rigid as iron hooks, his eyes flashed forth
angry and vindictive glances, as he curled up his blue lips, and gnashed
his teeth. On these occasions terror reigned throughout the menagerie,
and even the lions and tigers seemed lost in reflection.
There was not a single one of these animals that did not at times recall
to me, point by point, the characters, desires, and passions of men. I
became convinced with Buffon, who has written so many admirable pages on
natural history, that if, instead of beating and ill-treating them and
making them constantly suffer, we were only to study them, and take a
real and active interest in such an occupation, we should penetrate an
immense and unexplored world of ideas and sensations, where as yet we
can be hardly said to have placed our feet.
Vice-Admiral Campbell was so delighted with the grimaces, the tricks, the
eccentricities, and I must also add the ferocity, of my boarders, that he
immediately purchased an ape and a monkey. Whereupon every officer, out
of deference to his superior, selected in like manner an ape and a monkey.
I confess I could not bring myself to part with Mococo and Saïmira,
for it was necessary to sell both or to keep both; but Vice-Admiral
Campbell’s lady wished so much to possess them, that I had no alternative
except to resign them to her. I knew, moreover, that she would take as
much care of them as I myself had been in the habit of; nevertheless, I
asked her to promise me never to leave them in the power of their prime
persecutor, Karabouffi the First. She gave me her word, and I abandoned
my two young chimpanzees with confidence to her keeping. The poor things
appeared even more afflicted than myself at our separation, for they
embraced me like two children, and moistened my hands with their tears.
Overcome by these marks of affection, I was on the point of taking them
back again; but I recollected that I was a trader, and that a trader must
sell the wares in which he deals: interest therefore had its way.
As all the gentlemen belonging to the station bought, as I think I have
already said, my animals in pairs, it happened that, owing to my having
an odd ape, one of the two baboons, Karabouffi the Second, was left on my
hands. For want of a female to pair with him, he was condemned to remain
in the menagerie, a circumstance which irritated him to that degree as to
cause him to utter shrieks of rage on seeing his companions about to be
taken away while he alone was to be left behind.
His companions in their turn, pitying the lot of their unfortunate
comrade who remained a captive behind the iron bars, uttered the most
plaintive cries, and sought to prevent themselves from being conveyed
on board the vessels which were to carry them to the distant station. It
became necessary, therefore, to have recourse to the whip.
As may be supposed, all Macao was in commotion at the event. However, the
law was strong, and the whole of the apes were eventually embarked.
It would be impossible to give an idea, either by the aid of language or
of painting, of the dark and revengeful looks which the solitary baboon
directed towards me when I re-entered the menagerie after his companions’
departure.
I question whether the most irritated and malignant of men, burning with
feelings of suppressed hatred, ever condensed such unmistakable threats
of vengeance into his eyes as I could read in those of the infuriated
baboon. I saw there a positive hankering after blood, and that blood,
moreover, my own.
Nearly a year had elapsed since this extensive sale of apes, on which
I had, as the reader may suppose, realised enormous profits, when one
night I woke up suffocated by a dense smoke which seemed to rise from the
crevices in the floor of my room. This flooring, which was composed of
very thin boards, extended above the menagerie. I found myself positively
choking, and rose from my bed with infinite difficulty, and directed
my steps towards the window, which I immediately flung open. Indeed, I
opened every window and door so as not to perish of suffocation. But
directly the air had penetrated into the apartment, it was no longer
smoke that I had to contend with, but fire, which, running along the
cracks of the floor, enveloped ere long the whole house in a blaze.
My first thought was to save my poor mother, but I was, alas! too late.
The back part of the house, where her room was situated, was the first
to be filled with smoke, and my poor mother must have been suffocated
before she could call out for assistance. For myself, I was dragged from
the room where I wished to die. My neighbours saved me, carried me into
the street, and placed me on a stone bench, from whence I saw my entire
establishment consumed before my eyes. Through the broken door, through
the open entrance of the bazaar, I was a witness of a spectacle which I
shall never forget.
In the midst of the devouring flames, which were roasting my finest
birds, and in which my superb tigers were writhing with fearful cries,
nobody meanwhile daring to approach near enough to attempt to rescue
them, the baboon, a lighted brand in each hand, danced, chuckled,
grinned, and frisked about with a hideous kind of joy. His attitude,
his impudent looks, indeed everything about his frightful expression,
sufficiently proved him to be the author of the conflagration—he who, in
the course of a long-meditated night of vengeance, had managed to procure
some matches with which he had seen the keeper of an evening light up the
bazaar; he who, breaking his chains and the bars of his cage, had first
turned on the gas, and after allowing it to escape had then set light to
it. Such was the supreme vengeance of this terrible baboon, Karabouffi
the Second.
One of my neighbours shot him as he was dancing in the midst of the
flames. But I was not the less ruined; I had not the less lost my
excellent mother.
Under the weight of so many afflictions, and so much misery, I resolved
to change my profession; remembering rather late my poor father’s
admonition. For more than two years I traded in ivory, feathers, and
furs; but not being versed in this kind of traffic, I made only moderate
profits, and entertained no hope whatever of realising any very great
ones in future. Moreover, this mode of life, less active than what I had
been accustomed to, did not please me; my former pursuit was continually
recalled to my mind by the enticing nature of my studies in natural
history. I regretted it even for the dangers with which it was beset, and
of which I have already spoken. At last, after a good deal of hesitation,
I determined to follow it again. I was still young; several thousand
piastres were lying to my credit with M. Silvao, banker at Goa. I had
the means of re-establishing my business; but it was necessary for me to
undertake two or three journeys to the islands of Oceania, and join the
great hunters of wild beasts and birds of prey, with whom I counted upon
scouring the woods and swamps. It was a hardy and adventurous course to
follow; still there was no other way of re-stocking my establishment at
Macao. I hesitated for a time, I admit; but after awhile I took leave of
my few relations and my numerous friends, and made the final preparations
for my voyage. I ought not to omit to say that I had chartered a Chinese
junk on my own account, and that I had it at my service for an entire
year. My first destination was Australia, that immense island, as large
as a continent, where I was certain, according to the accounts of
travellers, to find some of the most varied and least known animals of
creation.
I set sail on the 3rd of July, 1850, in the junk which I had chartered,
and which did not make up for its great weight by any unusual strength.
It was an old tub of a thing, none the better for its numerous voyages to
Corea and Japan. Formerly it had been able to resist bad weather, but,
for all that, it could only boast at the present time of somewhat shaky
ribs and planks, scarcely to be relied on in rough weather, for anything
that Master Ming-Ming, its very indulgent captain, might say.
My first point of debarkation being New Holland or Australia, we steered
direct south on quitting Macao.
For eight days we were favoured by a wind which carried us straight
in this direction. So we soon found ourselves in the midst of the
archipelago of the Philippines, spite of the want of agreement prevailing
among the crew, which was composed of eight Chinese, eight Malays, and
eight Portuguese, three nations holding each other in the greatest
possible aversion, detesting one another as much as the Genoese formerly
detested the Corsicans, and the Corsicans the Genoese, and settling all
disputes by the arbitration of the knife.
While passing the Island of Mindanao, and at the moment of entering the
Sea of Celebes, we sprung a leak, and as if to make up for the fine
weather we had already enjoyed, the sky became overcast, and squalls
began to blow from every point of the compass.
Throughout ten entire days we endeavoured to pass the Straits of
Mindanao. The wind and currents, however, always drove us towards the
west, and the greater the efforts which we made to resist this deviation
from our course the more the leak in the junk increased.
To aggravate our position in the midst of a sea of itself sufficiently
dangerous, the crew refused to work at pumping out the water which was
gaining on us every hour. Chinese, Malays, and Portuguese alike refused
to perform this task as being too laborious for them; laborious it may
have been, but on it, nevertheless, the safety of all depended.
Captain Ming-Ming, I could only too plainly see, had no power whatever
over his incongruous crew; I even suspected him of having formerly
exercised the profession of pirate in company with the eight Malays,
who placed him on a footing of such perfect equality as unmistakably
indicated the bonds of an old and equivocal fraternity, and deprived him
of any kind of authority over them. The discovery was not very assuring
for me, who knew so well, as I have already explained, the utterly savage
character of these untamable brigands. This revelation, I confess,
startled me; I nevertheless dissembled my fears, but took the precaution
of loading a couple of pistols, and placing one in each of my two side
pockets.
The crew would not work at the pumps, and the water was continually
rising in the hold. Not by any means such good sailors as the Chinese and
Malays, the Portuguese portion of the crew became alarmed at the fate
which evidently threatened us, and proposed to make for some port. This
the Malays and Chinese opposed, and their will carried the question,
which only helped to confirm me in my suspicions of their former
character, as they evidently did not wish to show themselves in any port
which boasted of a regular police.
Moreover, what port should we make for? In the first place, where were
we? Were we above or below the Equator? Were we sailing along the Strait
of the Moluccas or of Macassar?
Master Ming-Ming, more learned in the art of smoking opium than in that
of navigating a vessel, was not the man to have informed us. The sky was
black, the wind blew our great bamboo sails into shreds, and the waves
seemed as though they would engulf us.
When it was no longer possible to overcome the danger which had now
become most imminent, this confused medley crew began one and all to
change their minds. The instinct of preservation awoke within them when
it was too late. They attempted to clear the water out of the junk;
but the pumps would no longer act. Fear then took possession of these
bandits, every one of whom, Malays, Portuguese, and Chinese, greedily
sought land on the horizon, although the chance was that they would be
hung as pirates as soon as they set foot on shore. During this anxious
time I could do nothing beyond looking to the preservation from sea water
of my good arms, my nets, and the various traps with which I had left
Macao, in the hope of replenishing my menagerie. Alas! what was the use
of all these precautions? Was I destined to escape myself from my present
critical position?
On the twenty-eighth day of our voyage, there was no other course left
us but to abandon ourselves to the discretion of the tempest. Master
Ming-Ming therefore left the junk to itself. I don’t think, although I
have seen many hurricanes on the coasts of Japan, whilst sailing with my
father, that the winds and waves were ever so frightfully disturbed as
they were on this occasion. The old junk bounded on the crest of the sea
like an elastic ball on the ground.
After three days passed between life and death, we perceived a point
black as ink, standing out from the lurid sky on the horizon. The Malays,
whose eyes have an infallible power of penetration, affirmed that it
was land. We sped along with all the violence of a hurricane. The night
having almost immediately supervened, we had not time to calculate if,
when the light of day re-appeared, we should have reached or passed this
wished-for land. And what a night it was for us, with neither sails, nor
masts, nor rudder, with the wind blowing great guns, and the junk seeming
as though it were splitting in pieces on every side!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]