One very hot afternoon I lay on my canvas cot in the open, staring straight upward into the overarching greenery of the trees.  This is a very pleasant thing to do.  The beautiful up-spreading, outstretching of the tree branches and twigs intrigue the eye; the leaves make fascinating, hypnotically waving patterns against a very blue sky; and in the chambers and galleries of the upper world the birds and insects carry on varied businesses of their own.  After a time the corner of my eye caught a quick movement far to the left and in a shadow.  At once I turned my attention that way.  After minute scrutiny I at length made out a monkey.  Evidently considering himself quite unobserved, he was slowly and with great care stalking our camp.  Inch by inch he moved, taking skilful advantage of every bit of cover, flattening himself along the limbs, hunching himself up behind bunches of leaves, until he had gained a big limb directly overhead.  There he stretched flat, staring down at the scene that had so strongly aroused his curiosity.  I lay there for over two hours reading and dozing.  My friend aloft never stirred.  When dusk fell he was still there.  Some time after dark he must have regained his band, for in the morning the limb was vacant.

Now comes the part of this story that really needs a witness, not to veracity perhaps, but to accuracy of observations.  Fortunately I have F. About noon next day the monkey returned to his point of observation.  He used the same precautions as to concealment; he followed his route of the day before; he proceeded directly to his old conning tower on the big limb.  It did not take him quite so long to get there, for he had already scouted out the trail. And close at his heels followed two other monkeys!  They crawled where he crawled; they crouched where he crouched; they hid where he hid; they flattened themselves out by him on the big limb, and all three of them passed the afternoon gazing down on the strange and fascinating things below.  Whether these newcomers were part of the first one’s family out for a treat, or whether they were Cook’s Tourists of the Jungle in charge of my friend’s competence as a guide, I do not know.

Farther down the river F. and I stopped for some time to watch the crossing of forty-odd of the little blue monkeys.  The whole band clambered to near the top of a tall tree growing by the water’s edge.  There, one by one, they ran out on a straight overhanging limb and cast themselves into space.  On the opposite bank of the river, and leaning well out, grew a small springy bush.  Each monkey landed smash in the middle of this, clasped it with all four hands, swayed alarmingly, recovered, and scampered ashore.  It was rather a nice problem in ballistics this, for a mistake in calculation of a foot in distance or a pound in push would land Mr. Monkey in the water.  And the joke of it was that directly beneath that bush lay two hungry-looking crocodiles!  As each tiny body hurtled through the air I’ll swear a look of hope came into the eyes of those crocs.  We watched until the last had made his leap.  There were no mistakes.  The joke was against the crocodiles.