ble clusters--inaccessible from
their great height--there is a species of monkey that manages now and
then to get a meal of them. How do these monkeys manage it? Not by
climbing the stem, for the thorns are too sharp even for them. How
then? Do the nuts fall to the ground and allow the monkeys to gather
them? No. This is not the case. How then? We shall see!

Guapo and Leon had returned to the camp, taking with them the pupunha
fruit and the firewood. A fire was kindled, the cooking-pot hung over
it on a tripod, and they all sat around to wait for its boiling.

While thus seated, an unusual noise reached their ears coming from the
woods. There were parrots and macaws among the palms making noise
enough, and fluttering about, but it was not these. The noise that had
arrested the attention of our travellers was a mixture of screaming, and
chattering, and howling, and barking, as if there were fifty sorts of
creatures at the making of it. The bushes, too, were heard "switching
about," and now and then a dead branch would crack, as if snapped
suddenly. To a stranger in these woods such a blending of sounds would
have appeared very mysterious and inexplicable. Not so to our party.
They knew it was only a troop of monkeys passing along upon one of their
journeys. From their peculiar cries, Guapo knew what kind of monkeys
they were.

"_Marimondas_," he said.

The marimondas are not true "howlers," although they are of the same
tribe as the "howling monkeys" (_Stentor_). They belong to the genus
_Ateles_, so called because they want the thumb, and are therefore
_imperfect_ or _unfinished_ as regards the hands. But what the ateles
want in hands is supplied by another member--the tail, and this they
have to all perfection. It is to them a fifth hand, and apparently more
useful than the other four. It assists them very materially in
travelling through the tree-tops. They use it to bring objects nearer
them. They use it to suspend themselves in a state of repose, and thus
suspended, they sleep--nay more, thus suspended, they often die! Of all
the monkey tribe the ateles are those that have most prehensile power in
their tails.

There are several species of them known--the coaita, the white-faced,
the black cayou, the beelzebub, the chamek, the black-handed, and the
marimonda. The habits of all are very similar, though the species
differ in size and colour.

The marimonda is one of the largest of South