The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-04-16

saw that they had with them a creature
that looked like girl, for her skin was
quite white, and, what was more, that
she was protected from the weather
when ithappened to be. cold by a fur
belt of some sort. which she tied round
her throat. The old balloons seemed to
be especially fond of her, and would sit
with their arms round her neck.
{sFor nearly whole summer watched
this particular white-skinned baboon,
till at last my curiosity quite overmas-
tered me. l noticed that, though she
climbed about the cliffs with the other
monkeys, at certain hour little before
shutdown they used to put her, with one
or two other much smaller ones, into a
little cave, while the family went off
somewhere to get food-to the mealie
fields, | suppose. Then got an idea
that l would catch this white baboon
and bring it home. But of course
could not do this by myself, SO l took
Hottentot-a very clever man when he
was not drunk-who lived on the stead,
into my confidence. He was called Hen
dirk, and was very fond of me; but for
a long while he would not listen to my
plan, because he said that the babyans
would kill us. At last bribed him with
a knife that had four blades, and one
afternoon we started Hendrix carry
ing stout sack made of hide, with a
rope running through it so that the
mouth could be drawn tight.
''Well, we got to the place, and, hid
ing ourselves carefully in the trees at the
foot of the kloof, watched the balloons
playing about and granting to each other,
till at length, according to custom, they
took the white one and three other little
babies and put them in the cave Then
the old man came out, looked carefully
round, called to his family, and went off
with them over the brow of the kloof.
! Now very slowly and cautiously we crept
up over the rocks till we came to the
mouth Of the cave and looked in. All
the four little balloons were fast asleep,
with their backs toward us. and their
arms around each others necks, the
white one being in the middle. Nothing
could have been better for our plans.
Hendrix, WHO BY this time had quite en-
tered into the spirit of the thing, crept
! into Che cave like snake, and suddenly
dropped the mouth of the hide bag over
the head Of tie white balloon. The poor
. little thing woke up and gave q violent
jump, which caused it to vanish right
into the bag. Then Hendrix pulled the
string tight, and together we knotted it
so that it was impossible for our captive
to escape: Meanwhile the other baby
balloons. had rushed from the cave
screaming, and when we got outside
they were nowhere to be seen.
"'Come on, miss said Hendrix; the
babyan will soon be back He had
shouldered the sack, inside which the
white balloon was. kicking violently, and
screaming like child 1t was dreadful
to hear its shrieks..
I'VE scrambled down the sides of the
kloof and ran for home as fast as we
could manage. When we were near the
waterfall, and within about 800 yards of
the garden wall, we heard voice be-
hind us. and there, leaping from rock to
rock, and running over the grass, was
the whole family of balloons headed by
the old man.
"'Run, miss, run! gasped Hendrix,
and did like the wind, leaving him far
behind. / dashed into the garden, where
some Kaffirs were working, crying, The
babyans! the babyansr Luckily the men
had their sticks and spears by them and
ran out just in time to save Hendrix,