Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I sailed from Hamburg to London on a small steamer. There were two of us passengers: I and a tiny monkey, a female of the ouistiti breed, which a Hamburg merchant was sending as a gift to his English partner. She was attached by a slender chain to one of the benches on the deck, and threw herself about and squeaked plaintively, like a bird.
In little barred cages was a collection of smaller carnivorous animals and rodents. In a huge room all the monkeys from the big gorilla to the minute ouistiti or witsit, were installed; they squabbled, pulled one another's tails, bit one another, uttered piercing cries. There were constant battles going on in that corner.
They sometimes get their tail between the two, of course the blow falls upon the tail, and the monkey bounds away, howling in the most frightful manner. The prettiest of all monkeys is the Marmozet; the Ouistiti of Buffon; the Simia Jacchus of Linnæus.
"My poor little ouistiti is dead. It is this abominable climate." I murmured condolences. I could not exhibit unreasonable grief at the demise of a sick monkey which I had never seen. "I'm also out of books," she said, after having paid her tribute to the memory of the departed. "I have been forced to ask the servants to lend me something to read. Have you ever tried this sort of thing?
Word Of The Day