rays of the summer sun, she invariably covered herself with a sack as protection, using it as a white woman does a cloak, or a Kafir woman a blanket. Her staple food was boiled mealies varied with bread, of which she was particularly fond. Add carrots, an occasional cabbage, fruits such as bananas and oranges, and on high days some pine-apple, nuts, a few sweets, or a handful of tobacco, and her tale of food is completed.
Between us there became an established friendship, incapable of being expressed in articulate speech,[1] but more or less communicated by friendly actions, mutual confidence, and a slight recourse to the universal language of gesture. Such a mutual understanding as existed, and between two animals so widely separated in the zoological scale, was a source to me of sincere pleasure, and also a form of compliment. My poor relation, the Baboon, was really anxious for comradeship, was always grateful for favours, and anxious to please. I once asked a clerical friend to study her as an example of original sin. She had, of course, no morals—unnecessary in a Baboon community—and she was cheerfully superior to all shame. She was greedy, passionate, truculent, and revengeful, but as a rule contented, appreciative of good living, highly courageous, and open in expressing her likes and dislikes. Stoical in bad weather, she was epicurean in the sunny fruit season. Decidedly cynical as far as appearances are concerned, she was yet sophistical, when, with cheeks filled with nuts, she returned an innocent glance to my sceptical deportment before providing more.
This animal would have been useful in a cricket field for her quickness and aptitude in catching. With oranges, I tried her all ways,—with pitches under-hand, and swift straight shots,—but she seldom missed any, and often caught with one hand. She once directed my attention to a flock of vultures soaring overhead, and which I had not noticed. An East Indian vender of pastry frequently visited us, when I usually purchased a tart or bun for the young Baboon and herself. Should this man come
- ↑ Anderson said that his Bushman told him he could understand the Baboon language,—when they are frightened, or hungry, or are to meet together to defend themselves against an enemy, or to meet to play,—and he knew well what they said, and could talk to them. ('Twenty-five Years in a Waggon,' p. 217.)
