e trees around
the house, and in the vines which laced the tops of the palm trees
together a troop of monkeys was chattering. The birds showed no fear
of us, and one, a gorgeous paroquet, flew from the tree in which it
had been perched and settled on the shoulder of the Conjure man. The
monkeys, when they saw us, set up a chorus of welcoming cries, and
began letting themselves down from the tree tops. My guide threw a
handful of rice on the ground for the bird, and tossed a basket of
tamarinds to where the monkeys could get them. Then, having placed
me in a comfortable hammock woven of cocoanut fibre, and brought me
a pipe and some excellent native tobacco, he slung another hammock
for himself, and settled down in it to ask me questions.

Imagine telling the news of the world for the last quarter of a century
to an intelligent and once well-educated man who has known nothing of
what has happened in all that time except what he might learn from
ignorant natives, who had obtained their knowledge second hand from
Spanish tax collectors only a trifle less ignorant than themselves.

Just in the middle of a sentence I became aware that some one was
looking at me from the door of the house behind me. Somebody or
something, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I did not quite know
which. I twisted around in the hammock to where I could look.

An enormous big ape stood erect in the doorway, steadying herself
by one hand placed against the door casing. She was looking at me
intently, as if she did not just know what to do.

My host had seen me turn in the hammock. "Europa," he said, and then
added some words which I did not understand.

The huge beast came towards me, walking erect, and gravely held out a
long and bony paw for me to shake. Then, as if satisfied that she had
done all that hospitality demanded of her, she walked to the further
end of the thatch verandah and stood there looking off into the forest,
from which there came a few minutes later the most unearthly and yet
most human cry I ever heard.

I sprang out of my hammock, but before I could ask, "what was
that?" the big ape had answered the cry with another one as weird as
the first.

"Sit down, I beg of you," my host said. "That was only Atlas, Europa's
mate, calling to her to let us know that he is nearly home. They
startled you. I should have introduced them to you before now."

While he was still talking, another ape, bigger than the first, came
in sig