but fatigue gradually obtained the mastery over curiosity, and, putting my head unconsciously beneath my wing, I fell into a profound sleep.  How long this continued, I know not; but I was suddenly awakened by a strange muttering of unknown voices.  I looked, and beheld two creatures whose appearance greatly surprised me.  They had nothing of the noble form and aspect of our Indian neighbours.  One of them considerably resembled the preacher-monkey in countenance and deportment; his head was denuded of hair, and his person was covered by a black substance, which left no limb visible except his ancles and feet, which were very much like those of an ape.  The other had all the air of a gigantic parrot:  he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow head; and all the rest of his strange figure was party-coloured, blue, green, red, and black.  I classed him at once as a specimen of the Psittacus Ochropterus.  The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade and repose.  They had beside them a basket filled with dead game, fruit, and honey; and the parrot had a long instrument near him on the ground, which I afterwards learned was a fowling-piece.  They talked a strange jargon of different intonation, like that of the respective chatter of the grey and the green parrots.  Both seemed to complain, and, by the expression of their ugly and roguish faces, to interrogate each other.  As soon as they went away, I endeavoured to mutter to myself the sounds they had uttered, but could retain only two phrases.  The one had been spoken by the ape, and ran thus—­“Shure it was for my sweet sowl’s sake, jewel;” the other was—­“Eh, sirs, it was aw’ for the love of the siller.”  I was extremely amused by my acquisition; and, being convinced that I was now qualified to present myself at the settlement, was about to descend from my altitude, when the two strangers returned:  they had come back for the gun, which they had left behind them.  As they picked it up, it went off, and I was startled into one of my loudest screams.  The strangers looked at me with great delight, he whom I likened to the parrot exclaiming—­“Weel, mon, what brought you here?” I answered in his own words, for want of better—­“Eh, sirs, it was aw’ for the love of the siller.”  He dropped his piece, and fled in consternation, calling lustily—­“Its auld clooty himsen, mon, its auld Horny, I tell ye; come awa, come awa.”  His friend, who seemed more acquainted with our species, encouraged him to return; and offering me some fruit from his basket, said—­“Why, Poll, you cratur, what brought you so far from home?” I endeavoured to imitate his peculiar tone, and replied—­“Why thin it was for my sweet sowl’s sake, jewel.”—­“Why then,” said my interlocutor, coolly (for I never forgot his words) “that bird bates cockfighting.”  They now both endeavoured to catch me.  It was all I wanted, and I perched on the preaching-monkey’s wrist, while he took up the basket in his left hand,