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Updated: June 17, 2025
The first rains have commenced, gentle, fertilizing rains, falling at intervals and lovingly drank in by the earth; Selkirk no longer thinks of his table and seats; another project has just taken the place of these, and seems to deserve the precedence. Marimonda has just returned from a tour in the woods, bringing fruits of all sorts, among them some which Selkirk has never before seen.
The Indian, however, was not to be cheated out of his supper of roast-monkey. He walked quietly back for his axe; and bringing it up, soon felled the tree, and took the marimonda mother with him to the camp. His next affair was to skin it, which he did by stripping the pelt from the head, arms, legs, and all; so that, after being skinned, the creature bore a most hideous resemblance to a child!
A rustling was heard in the foliage; he raised his eyes, expecting to see Marimonda swinging on the branch of a tree. Perceiving nothing, he remembered that Marimonda reposed at the Oasis; he took the road from the mountain which led thither, but when he arrived there, when he was before her tomb, covered with tall grass, he had forgotten why he came.
While he, astonished, is seeking to divine the direction from which this invisible battery plays, a little date-stone hits him on the cheek. He immediately hears as it were a joyous whistling in the foliage, which is agitated at his right, and sees Marimonda leaping from tree to tree, using for this movement her feet, her tail, and one hand; for she holds the other to her side.
In consequence of his encounter with Marimonda, he ransacked the woods and meadows, seeking among all plants those which approximated nearest to the nature of the nicotiana.
Whether she is satisfied with her discoveries, or whether forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries are natural to her, on perceiving her old companion, wagging her head in token of good-will, she descends towards him from the tree on which she is perched. But Marimonda is the captain's monkey; she has been his property, his favorite, his flatterer!
Excited by his presence, Marimonda makes an effort to rise, but immediately falls back, uttering a new cry of pain. With his heart full of anguish, taking her in his arms, Selkirk, not without a painful effort, not without being obliged to pause on the way to recover his strength, carries her to the dwelling on the shore. This shore he finds deserted and in confusion.
Have we not seen in India, ourang-outangs trained to perform the office of domestics? and Marimonda was in nothing inferior in intelligence and activity. She is now fond of the flesh of the goat, of that of the coatis and agoutis, for monkeys easily become carnivorous; but the table is also sometimes covered with the products of her hunting.
Disgusted with her sea-voyages, with the intelligence natural to her race, Marimonda has undoubtedly profited by the moment of the boat's leaving the ship to conceal herself in it and gain the shore along with the prisoner, which she might easily have done, unseen by all, during the transporting of the effects and provisions.
This somebody, this something, is Marimonda. Marimonda is now the companion of Selkirk, his friend, his slave; she seems to comprehend his slightest gestures and even his ennui.
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