The Lost Boy
A diminutive lad, scarce five years of age, did stray hence, unaccompanied.
His kinfolk did conduct a thorough search, yet were unable to recover him.
A twelvemonth hence, a personage did espy the spoor of baboons conjoined with the imprints of a child's foot.
The populace did pursue the tracks and discovered the boy ensconced upon a boulder, consorting with a troop of baboons. The baboons, in haste, did flee, conveying the boy along with them, but the pursuers persisted, and the baboons, at length, did yield up the boy.
The boy evinced a predilection for remaining with the baboons, yet after a season, he did resume his human existence. “They were of a kindly disposition,” quoth he, “bewing me with particular delicacies and invariably according me precedence in libation.”
The Woman Who Went Fishing
A woman, whilst engaged in angling by the riverbank, did place her infant upon the adjacent shore.
The babe, presently, commenced to utter cries of distress.
Thereupon, an ape of considerable size and aspect did approach and tenderly cradle the child in its arms.
The mother, seized by alarm, emitted a scream; yet the ape, with measured tones, reassured her, uttering, “Be not afeared,” and did restore the babe unto her keeping.
The woman’s husband, seized by a desire to behold this remarkable ape, accompanied his wife to the river, where he secreted himself from view.
Once more, the ape emerged and cradled the child. The man, in haste, did hurl his spear at the ape, yet, lamentably, struck the infant instead.
“Thou hast slain thine own,” groaned the ape, with manifest sorrow, as she placed the lifeless child upon the earth and retreated into the depths of the forest.
The Husbandman and the Baboon
A husbandman, it so happened, did once discover an infant baboon, forlorn and abandoned. Moved by sentiments of pity, the aforementioned husbandman conveyed the creature to his abode, raising it thenceforth in the capacity of a shepherd, charged with the diurnal guardianship of the sheep and their nocturnal return to the kraal.
The husbandman did furnish the baboon with a goat for conveyance, upon whose lacteal sustenance the baboon subsisted.
Whenever the husbandman did slaughter a sheep, he would apportion a share of the meat unto the baboon; yet the baboon himself did never commit the act of slaughter upon any sheep.
Thus matters proceeded harmoniously until, upon a certain day, a leopard did assail the flock, bringing about the demise of the baboon shepherd.
The husbandman was sore aggrieved.
The Villagers and the Chimpanzee
The village children, in their wanton sport, were wont to persecute the chimpanzee, assailing him with taunts and petty vexations. They did discharge toy arrows at his person and pelt him with stones, pursuing this ignoble pastime until the chimpanzee was compelled to seek refuge in precipitate flight.
Upon a certain day, however, the chimpanzee, hitherto the object of their derision, did effect a most startling reversal of fortune. He entered the village precincts, bearing aloft a spear of formidable aspect. When the villagers, roused to a state of considerable alarm, did confront him, the chimpanzee, with a swift and decisive action, cast his spear, thereby inflicting a mortal wound upon one of their number.
'Pray divulge the provenance of that implement!' enquired the village chief, his voice fraught with a mixture of consternation and imperious command.
'Nay, rather, I demand recompense for the spears purloined from my possession!' retorted the chimpanzee. 'Who hath despoiled me of my ancestral lands? Was I not resident here aforetime? Are ye not, in verity, my progeny, albeit degenerate?'
Having delivered this pointed rebuke, the chimpanzee, with an air of solemn dignity, did then retire into the verdant recesses of the forest, leaving the villagers to ponder the weight of his pronouncements.
The Gentleman Who Pursued a Gorilla
A gentleman, vexed by the depredations upon his fields, did pursue a gorilla with the intent of dispatching the beast. He diligently followed the tracks of the creature, eventually discovering a collection of fruits piled at the foot of a tree, wherein the gorilla was perched. The gentleman, with patience, awaited the gorilla's descent.
In the interim, a chimpanzee did approach and commenced to partake of the fruits.
The gorilla, thereafter descending, was met with the ire of the chimpanzee, who endeavoured to drive the larger primate away. Upon the gorilla's voicing its displeasure, the chimpanzee seized a branch and struck the gorilla. The gorilla, in response, delivered a single, fatal blow to the chimpanzee.
The gentleman, having witnessed these events, deemed it prudent to return forthwith to his abode.