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ated my attendant in a tone of exultation. The party came close up to where Rowley and I were lying; the women stood aside, jumping and laughing, and crossing themselves, and crying out "_Un Zambo! Un Zambo Muerto!_" the group opened, and we saw, lying dead upon the ground, one of our horrible antagonists of the preceding night. "Good God, what is that?" cried Rowley and I, with one breath. "_Un demonio!_ a devil!" "_Perdonen vos, Senores--Un Zambo mono--muy terribles los Zambos._ Terrible monkeys these Zambos." "Monkeys!" cried I. "Monkeys!" repeated poor Rowley, raising himself up into a sitting posture by the help of his hands. "Monkeys--apes--by Jove! We've been fighting with monkeys, and it's they who have mauled us in this way. Well, Jonathan Rowley, think of your coming from old Virginny to Mexico to be whipped by a monkey. It's gone goose with _your_ character. You can never show your face in the States again. Whipped by an ape!--an ape, with a tail and a hairy--O Lord! Whipped by a monkey!" And the ludicrousness of the notion overcoming his mortification, and the pain of his wounds and bites, he sank back upon the bed of blankets and banana leaves, laughing as well as his swollen face and sausage-looking lips would allow him. It was as much as I could do to persuade myself, that the carcass lying before me had never been inhabited by a human soul. It was humiliating to behold the close affinity between this huge ape and our own species. Had it not been for the tail, I could have fancied I saw the dead body of some prairie hunter dressed in skins. It was exactly like a powerful, well-grown man; and even the expression of the face had more of bad human passions than of animal instinct. The feet and thighs were those of a muscular man: the legs rather too curved and calfless, though I have seen Negroes who had scarcely better ones; the tendons of the hands stood out like whipcords; the nails were as long as a tiger's claws. No wonder that we had been overmatched in our struggle with the brutes. No man could have withstood them. The arms of this one were like packets of cordage, all muscle, nerve, and sinew; and the hands were clasped together with such force, that the efforts of eight or ten Mexicans and Indians were insufficient to disunite them. Whatever remained to be cleared up in our night's adventures was now soon explained. Our guide, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, had allowed us
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