was in his pouch in a moment. Upon
which the boy set up a yell, which attracted my notice to this violation
of the articles of war, to which the baboon was equally amenable as any
other person in the ship; for it is expressly stated in the preamble of
every separate article, "All who are _in_, or _belonging_ to."
Whereupon I jumped off the carronade, and by way of assisting his
digestion, I served out to the baboon monkey's allowance, which is, more
kicks than halfpence. The master reported that the heavens intimated
that it was twelve o'clock; and with all the humility of a captain of a
man-of-war, I ordered him to "make it so;" whereupon it was made, and so
passed that day. I do not remember how many days it was afterwards that
I was on the carronade as usual, about the same time, and all parties
were precisely in the same situations,--the master by my side, the
baboon under the booms, and the boy walking out of the cabin with his
bread and butter. As before, he again passed the baboon, who again
snatched the bread and butter from the boy, who again set up a squall,
which again attracted my attention. Looked round, and the baboon caught
my eye, which told him plainly that he'd soon catch what was not "at all
_my eye_;" and he proved that he actually thought so, for he actually
put the bread and butter back into the boy's hands. It was the only
instance of which I ever knew or heard of a monkey being capable of
self-denial when his stomach was concerned, and I record it accordingly.
(Par parenthese:) it is well known that monkeys will take the
small-pox, measles, and I believe the scarlet fever; but this poor
fellow, when the ship's company were dying of the cholera, took that
disease, went through all its gradations, and died apparently in great
agony.
As, then, invention and memory are both common to instinct as well as to
reason, where is the line of demarcation to be drawn; especially as in
the case of the elephants I have mentioned, superior instinct will
invent when inferior reason is at fault? It would appear, if the two
qualities must be associated, that, at all events, there are two
varieties of instinct: blind instinct, which is superior to reason, so
far that it never errs, as it is God who guides; and inventive instinct,
which enables the superior animals to provide for unexpected
difficulties, or to meet those which memory has impressed upon them.
But if we examine ourselves, the difficulty become
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