d as a
retreat to this troop of marauders. They fired at them, killed ten, and
wounded others, which were brought to them by the dogs; but several
negroes were severely wounded in this encounter, either by the stones
hurled at them by the apes, or by their bites; the females, especially,
were most furious in revenging the death of their young ones, which
they carried in their arms.

D'Obsonville, speaking of the sacred haunts of apes in different parts
of India, says that, in the course of his travels through that country,
he occasionally went into the ancient temples, in order to rest
himself. He noticed always that several of the apes, which abounded
there, first observed him attentively, then looked inquisitively at the
food which he was about to take, betraying, by their features and
gestures, the great desire which they felt to partake of it with him.
In order to amuse himself upon such occasions, he was generally
provided with a quantity of dried peas; of these he first scattered
some on the side where the leader stood,--for, according to his
account, the apes always obey some particular one as their
leader,--upon which the animal gradually approached nearer, and
gathered them eagerly up. He then held out a handful to the animal;
and, as they seldom meet a person who harbors any hostile intentions
against them, the creature ventured slowly to approach, cautiously
watching, as it seemed, lest any trick might be played upon him. At
length, becoming bolder, he laid hold, with one of his paws, of the
thumb of the hand in which the peas were held out to him, while, with
the other, he carried them to his mouth, keeping his eyes all the while
fixed upon those of M. d'Obsonville.

"If I happened to laugh," he observes, "or to move myself, the ape
immediately gave over eating, worked his lips, and made a kind of
growling noise, the meaning of which was rendered very intelligible to
me by his long, canine teeth, which he occasionally exhibited. If I
threw some of the peas to a distance from him, he sometimes seemed
pleased to see other apes pick them up; though, at other times, he
grumbled at it, and attacked those who approached too near to me. The
noise which he made, and the apprehensions he showed, though they
might, perhaps, proceed in some measure from his own greediness,
evidently proved, however, that he feared I might take advantage of
their weakness, and so make them prisoners. I also observed, that those
whom