That monkeys and men are one and the
same animal, we shall not take upon ourselves absolutely to assert, for
the truth is, we, for one or two, know nothing whatever about the
matter; all we mean to say is, that nobody has yet proved that they are
not, and farther, that whatever may be the case with men, monkeys have
reason and speech.
The monkey has not had justice done him, we repeat and insist upon it;
for what right have you to judge of a whole people, from a few isolated
individuals,--and from a few isolated individuals, too, running up poles
with a chain round their waist, twenty times the length of their own
tail, or grinning in ones or twos through the bars of a cage in a
menagerie? His eyes are red with perpetual weeping--and his smile is
sardonic in captivity. His fur is mouldy and mangy, and he is manifestly
ashamed of his tail, prehensile no more--and of his paws, "very hands,
as you may say," miserable matches to his miserable feet. To know him as
he is, you must go to Senegal; or if that be too far off for a trip
during the summer vacation, to the Rock of Gebir, now called Gibraltar,
and see him at his gambols among the cliffs.
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