MONKEY NOTIONS.

The guamos were now in full bearing, their luscious pods a grateful refreshment to the heated and thirsty rambler through the woods. Monkeys and macaws are particularly fond of this fruit; and on the tops of all the highest guamo-trees could be seen family reunions of these chatterers apparently discussing the merits of the crop.

Of monkeys, the most conspicuous in the Llanos are the araguato, or howling monkey (Simia ursina), and the machango (S. sajous), this last a small grey monkey, very common in most parts of Venezuela. On account of its wonderful agility and vivacious disposition the machango is much esteemed as a pet by the inhabitants, many of whom keep one or more tied to a post in the court-yard, where they enact to some extent the r?le of buffoon to the whole family. They are, however, very mischievous creatures, doing every possible damage in the house the moment they are at large; but are especially destructive to cacao plantations{263} and cornfields. When about to commence their depredations in these, they usually assemble in great numbers and exercise many precautions; the first step is to station several of their number as sentinels upon the highest trees, or any elevated situation overlooking the avenues leading to the plantation, whence they warn the others of approaching danger. The next proceeding is that of placing those of the females—which on account of their young are prevented from assisting in the foray—in some safe retreat. The precautions completed, they invest the cornfield in earnest, pulling down the stocks and tearing off ears of corn with astonishing expedition, chattering, laughing, and yelling all the while like a set of mischievous boys in the absence of the dominie. When they have accumulated a sufficient number of ears, they split the husks, and tying them in pairs by means of an ingenious knot peculiar to themselves, called in consequence monkey-tie, they throw them across their backs, and thus equipped hasten to hide their booty in some safe nook difficult of discovery by the neglectful majordomo, who not unfrequently conceals his own defalcations in the yield of the plantation by ascribing the deficiency to the thieving monkeys. It often happens that while these last are engaged in their depredations, they are surprised by the owner of the cornfield, who, eluding the vigilance of the scouts, suddenly appears and pours a shower of shot into their midst. Then with shrill cries of alarm the whole troop scamper off helter-skelter, tumbling, pitching or hobbling along on all fours, but never dropping a particle of their plunder. The belief obtains{264} in the Llanos, that when at length safe in their haunts, the careless sentinels are arraigned before a council of elders, who after due deliberation condemn them, after which the guilty parties are tied to a tree and soundly whipped.

No less remarkable is their ingenious method of crossing torrents and other minor streams which they often encounter in their ceaseless perambulations through the forest. As among men, all cannot swim with equal facility, so it is also with monkeys; accordingly the leaders of the troop, generally the strongest of the party, climb to the spreading branches of some tree projecting over the stream; one of them then twists his tail firmly around a branch, and letting his body hang, seizes upon the tail of the nearest comrade, who in his turn performs the same operation with the next, and so on until a sort of chain or living pendulum is formed, which in obedience to the laws of equilibrium oscillates slowly but constantly from their combined efforts to reach the opposite bank. This finally achieved, the last monkey secures himself to the most convenient tree. The others of the chain, now disengaged from the tree at the opposite side of the stream, wade through the water, each helped by his neighbor, assisted likewise by the current. Some are, however, occasionally drowned, the last one in the chain especially, which circumstance has probably given rise to the popular proverb, el último mono siempre se ahoga—the last monkey is sure to be drowned. Sagacious as these animals undoubtedly are, it is often very easy to entrap them. One of the simplest methods consists in cutting a{265} number of holes in a gourd barely large enough to admit of squeezing in the monkey’s hands. The gourd thus prepared is filled with corn and secured to the trunk of a tree, then shaken violently for a time so as to attract the attention of the monkeys, and a few grains of corn scattered in the neighborhood of the trap. The gourd is in fact the dinner bell of the monkeys, which no sooner hear the well known sound, than they descend in great numbers from their aerial homes, and each in turn seizing the gourd, grasps through one of the holes a handful of corn. ‘But in vain do they struggle to withdraw their hands without relinquishing the prize; and at this critical moment, the concealed author of their mishap suddenly makes his appearance, and tying their hands carries them off to his cottage in the woods.

More taciturn and retiring in his habits than the preceding, the araguato—a large reddish monkey of the ring-tail genus—exhibits none of those mischievous tricks which characterize the former, never approaching the haunts of man nor ravaging the fields of the industrious farmer. His only food consists of wild fruits, gathered as, with astonishing rapidity, he springs from branch to branch. All the limbs of this great monkey are admirably adapted to his roving habits; in these he is assisted very materially by his long prehensile tail, which acts the part of a fifth hand.

The roar of the araguato is so extraordinary, that persons who hear it for the first time invariably imagine it that of the jaguar. I think I may assert without fear of mistake, that it can be heard at the distance{266} of three miles, especially in damp and cloudy weather. “This most striking of all animal voices is heard occasionally at sunrise and sunset, and sometimes in the heat of the day, but more frequently during the darkness of night. When near, the roar is terrific; a naturalist has compared it to the tempest howling through rocky caverns. It is a voice so unearthly that, heard unexpectedly for the first time, it would fill the mind with the most melancholy forebodings.”[32]

“The Indians pretend,” observes Humboldt, that when the araguatos fill the forest with their howlings, there is always one that chants as leader to the chorus. The observation is pretty accurate. During a long interval one solitary and strong voice is generally distinguished, till its place is taken by another voice of a different pitch. We may observe from time to time the same instinct of imitation among frogs, and almost all animals which live together and exert their voices in union. The missionaries further assert that when a female among the araguatos is on the point of bringing forth, the choir suspends its howlings till the moment of the birth of the young. I could not myself judge of the accuracy of this assertion; but I do not believe it to be entirely unfounded. I have observed that when an extraordinary incident—the moans, for instance, of a wounded araguato—fixed the attention of the band, the howlings were for some minutes suspended.{267} The face of this singular monkey is nearly concealed by a sandy, bushy beard, extending below and projecting considerably beyond his chin, giving him a very dignified appearance. So striking is their resemblance to the human species, that once, after having shot one, I almost felt as though I had committed a murder. When I raised the poor creature from the ground upon which he had fallen, his large grey eyes were bathed in tears, and every feature expressed the deepest agony. Casting upon me a most eloquent look of reproach, he endeavored to push me aside; but too much enfeebled by his wound, lay down and calmly resigned himself to the scrutinizing gaze of my English companions, who discussed and disputed about the division of his still panting body—one wanting the skin for a smoking cap and the drum of the throat for the bowl of his pipe, while the other would be contented with nothing less than the whole carcass. For my own part, I only desired to get out of sight of the dying creature; and shouldering my gun, departed in a mood which determined me never again to lift my hand against these innocent wild men of the woods.

South America may be said to be, par excellence, the home of the monkey tribe. Besides the foregoing, the great forest south of the pampas of Apure is filled with the cries, yells, and roarings by night and day—for some are nocturnal and others diurnal—of countless troops of the various families of these quadrumana, roaming through it, from the mysterious Salvaje (supposed by many to be a great and powerful monkey, who, Gorilla-like, seizes upon defenceless{268} women and carries them off to some inaccessible tree in the forest), down to the tiny marmoset, not larger than a flying-squirrel, but all possessing more or less that degree of intelligence and cunning so nearly akin to human instinct. Some are white-faced, with the rest of the body black; others black-faced, forming a curious contrast with a thick head of hair perfectly white. Bates observed on the Upper Amazon a very rare species with a scarlet face, making the animal look pretty much like an Indian bedaubed with arnatto,[33] as is the practice of the aborigines in a wild state. Some have blue noses; others a dark ring around the eyes, giving the creature a most ludicrous appearance, as if adorned with a pair of spectacles.

In the same region is found another curious genus of monkeys, namely, the owl-faced night apes, described by Bates and Humboldt as being of small size, the body about a foot long and the tail fourteen inches, and are thickly clothed with soft, grey, and brown hair, similar in substance to that of the rabbit. They sleep all day long in hollow trees, and come forth to prey on insects, and eat fruits, only in the night. Their physiognomy reminds one of an owl, or tiger-cat; the face is round and encircled by a ruff of whitish fur. Bates had one of these animals given him by a compadre, as a present from his newly-baptized godson, and he describes it as being a great favorite with every one, from the cleanliness of its habits and the prettiness of its features and ways;{269} and the Municipal Judge of Ega, Don Carlos Mariana, had another species of the same genus, which was most amusingly tame, delighting to be caressed by all persons who came into the house, and at night sleeping with his master in his own hammock, and nestling in his bosom half the day as he lay reading.

A very striking feature of most South American monkeys is the strong resemblance they bear to the Indian race, just as those of Africa resemble the negro, and those of the Indian Archipelago the Malay race of men. Some of them look so much like Indians, that one cannot help imagining there exists a near relationship between these dwellers of the forest. The capuchin of the Orinoco, which Waterton has made so celebrated, under the vague appellation of nondescript, and the tití of the same locality, may be mentioned as exceptions to the rule, the former on account of a long, bushy beard, and soft, glossy black head of hair, nicely parted in the middle, like a refined exquisite, and the latter with its finely-modelled head and most expressive features, which added to a high degree of intelligence and sprightly restlessness possessed by the little creature, make it a favorite pet, with ladies especially, when reduced to domestic life. The tití is a medium-sized monkey, with hair of a golden yellow; and what adds to its attraction as a pet, is its cleanly habits, so unlike those of its congeners, washing its hands whenever it comes near water, which makes them look at all times like those of a well-nursed child. But, woe to the elegantly furnished boudoir, if it should contrive to get loose,{270} which it often does in spite of precautions, for it will prove a perfect enfant terrible amongst the choicest trinkets of feminine adornment, smashing everything within its reach, and examining into every nook and corner of the wardrobe with perfect infantile curiosity. On the other hand, it will completely rid the house of spiders and other like vermin, for which tropical climates are famous, not even sparing the favorite songster in its cage, for it is quite omnivorous in its tastes. Humboldt relates of one he kept in his canoe, during his tedious exploration of these rivers, that it would take particular pleasure in looking over the plates of a work on Natural History, which the great philosopher used to turn over occasionally for his own and his pet’s amusement; sitting itself on the lap of its master, it would look intently on the figures of the various animals with as much interest as a child would evince, under like circumstances, but without betraying any especial emotion, until it came to the plate representing the insects. Although the engravings were not colored, the tití would now advance its little hand in the hope of catching a spider, a grasshopper, or a wasp, whenever it perceived one of these insects, of which it is particularly fond. It remained perfectly indifferent when it was shown engravings of skeletons or heads of mammiferous animals. “No other monkey,” adds Humboldt, “has so much the physiognomy of a child as the tití; there is the same expression of innocence, the same playful smile, the same rapidity in the transition from joy to sorrow. Its large, handsome eyes are instantly filled with{271} tears when it is seized with fear.” Even in the wild state, the tití evinces a degree of cunning seldom found in others of its class. An instance of this is shown in the manner in which it robs the bee colony not only of its rich stores of sweet honey, but also of its industrious tenants; stationing itself at the mouth of the beehive—usually in the hollow branch of some tree in the forest—the tití catches and eats up every member of the busy colony as they go in and out on their laborious errands. When no more insects can be obtained, and knowing instinctively that within that mysterious abode is to be found something sweeter still, the little imp diligently commences to dig into the aperture until a passage wide enough for the hand is made, and then commences the work of destruction upon grubs and honey-combs. Should these be placed too far down the opening to be reached with the hand, the tití intro............