between the African tribes and the ourangoutang.
Giving themselves up to the sensual
enjoyments of the passing day, without care
for the morrow, when the trees give them
fruits, both the savages and the quadrumanes
gorge themselves; when they cannot get
fruits they eat animals or insects; when
fruits, animals, and insects fail them, they
starve. While the structure of the four-handed
and five-handed mammals is an odious
caricature of the human form, the abdication
of reason and prudence gives men a still more
hideous moral resemblance to the ugliest of
animals.

It is time I should pass from the hominal
to the animal coco-eaters, which are less
known, and still more curious. A passing
word, however, must be given to the interesting
and important hominal varieties to
whom the destiny is committed of elevating
the reckless tribes to the dignity of the calculating
races. The cross-breeds may already
be counted by millions in the tropical regions.
Americans with the blood of the red race in
them, Creoles with the trace of the black
pigment under their skins, Britons with the
yellow hues of the Malays, and the high cheekbones
of Mongols, are the natural interpreters
between European prudence and Asiatic and
African improvidence. Creoles and cross-breeds
are born to one of the noblest missions
in the march of time. I have been singularly
struck with the unconscious impression
of this truth, which I have seen in individuals
of these varieties who have come in my way.
There is a passion in the new generation of
them for self-improvement. Perceiving clearly
that wealth and knowledge are the chief distinctions
in these modern days, many of them
are to be found ardently engaged in the pursuit
of both without separating them; for in the
present age neither the ignorant millionnaire,
nor the ill-bred peer, nor the poor scholar,
can obtain respect and escape mortification.
The Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and English
races have blended blood with the improvident
races, and the results are making their
appearance around all their colonies, in cross-breeds
capable of rivalling the best specimens
of the most celebrated races. This fact is
one of the most interesting features of the
human family in these times. The distance
is vast between the races who calculate
eclipses, and the races who find the counting
of their fingers invested with insurmountable
arithmetical difficulties; but, when these
races are crossed, the product is not a child
standing midway between them in intelligence,
but a highly improveable cross-breed
capable of rising by culture to the highest
levels of the superior race. There is hope
for humanity in this truth.

Among the animal coco-eaters, the first
place may be given to the monkeys, several
species of which caricature the hominal form
while they are all removed very far from
men by the texture of their brains. There
are no monkeys in New Zealand and Australia,
and only one species in Europe— which
is found, as if by accident, upon the rock of
Gibraltar. The species of Asia and the Indian
islands differ widely from the species of
Central America and the Island of Madagascar.
The Madagascar species are all of the
type called Limurians, or monkeys with sharp-pointed
muzzles. The Gibraltar, Asiatic, and
African monkeys have thin partitions between
their nostrils, and have only short
tails when they have tails. The Central
American species have thick partitions between
their nostrils; and all the five-handed
monkeys with catching tails are American
monkeys.

Monkeys seem to hold a rank somewhere
between the quadrupeds and the birds, when
they are found in their natural state, living
on the trees in the vast Brazilian and African
forests. They walk with difficulty upon the
ground, and some of them can almost fly.
Swinging and climbing from branch to branch
and from tree to tree, with the aid of four or
five hands, and supremely indifferent which
end of them is uppermost, they make long
journeys in search of fruits and eggs. As they
can escape from lions and tigers with great
facility, serpents are the only enemies really
formidable to them. In some species the
little troops are united as if they were one
sole family, under the chieftainship of an
old male. When the chief assembles his
clan, he makes such a howling noise, and the
troop gather round him with such submission,
that he has been wickedly called the
preacher monkey. Everybody knows how
capricious they are, being alternately curious
and indifferent, tranquil and tricky, playful
and furious. The greatest affection between
the males and the females does not extend to
refraining from stealing each other's food.
They never have recourse to force, but always
to sleight-of-hand, in accomplishing their
thefts. M. Frédéric Cuvier says, the basis of
the education which the female gives to her
little ones is an apprenticeship in theft.
Monkeys maraud in the neighbourhood of
man like the French soldiers of the first
empire. Sentinels are planted to give the
alarm of danger, and lines— or, as the French
call them, queues, or tails— are formed
to hand the fruits, which are lodged in
their stores with great rapidity. The dangers
of the marauding monkeys and soldiers
are identical, for wherever the use
of fire-arms prevails they are shot without
scruple.

Traps are laid on the Indian shores to
catch the wild hogs and porcupines, and
prevent them from injuring the roots of the
3coco-palms.

Wild elephants are so fond of the young
and tender leaves of the coco-palms, that it
is often found necessary to protect the plantations
by lighting fires and discharging
muskets during the night.