Nyasaland Sketches. Ii: Familiars in the Wilds
I
IT is the deplorable tendency of the generality of mankind, that it comes to definite conclusions about men and things on insufficient evidence. There exists only one class of people in the world, which, as a whole, judges correctly nationalities other than its own — the class of common sailors of tramp cargo boats. The extent to which all the rest, even the cleverest, overrate the value of their personal experience, is apt to make one doubt the sanity of mankind in general.
Because a man has a Jewish stockbroker, or his children a Catholic governess, he imagines that he knows all that can be known and said about Jews or Catholics. The German who travels across the continent in one compartment with an English commercial traveler leaves the train imbued with the ineradicable conviction that the British are a nation of shopkeepers; whereas, on the other hand, the Englishman who, on the same journey, has been bored to death by the conversation of an erudite German philosopher, will be ready to swear ever afterward that Lord Palmerston was right, after all, when he called the Germans a nation of ‘damned professors.'
Unfortunately these misconceptions are generally less harmless than the elegant fraud of Prosper Merimée, who, without knowing a word of Sclavonic, or having ever crossed the Adriatic, enriched the French literature of his day with a classic translation of Dalmatian folklore. Who can imagine for a moment that Seneca, with his Christian morals and ethics, would have encouraged Ills Imperial pupil’s persecution of the Christians, if he had lived among the latter for ever so short a time? (Unless he had, maybe, the gift of prophecy, and foresaw that the world championship for cruelty would be wrested from Nero’s memory in a Christian country, in the second millennium of Christianity.)
The same applies, if possible even in a higher degree, to the notions harbored by the majority of people as regards animals, although we may no more believe with the younger Pliny that a lion loses all his strength when a cloak is thrown over him, or, with Shakespeare, that horsehair imbedded in mud will develop into worms. The reason why the professional hunter is, as a rule, so far ahead of the professional biologist or zoölogist, lies in the circumstance that the former derives his knowledge from intercourse with animals in the wild state, protracted often over considerable periods of time, while many of the latter, by the nature of things, derive their knowledge from caged specimens only. One might as well attempt to write a treatise on the human mind from observations made on Kaspar Hauser, or Tsar Twan VI of Russia.
Ludwig Büehner, the author of Kraft und Stoff, writes in a less wellknown, but equally profound and farreaching book of his, Liebe und Liebesleben in der Thier-welt, the following words on this subject: —
’It will be found that, with few exceptions, all those who have had occasion to observe animals without prejudice and with sound common sense, and to live in personal contact with them and listen to their doings, will entertain an entirely different opinion about their intellectual and psychic qualities, from those who follow the traditional theories of philosophical schools.’
If Cuvier was correct in his opinion, that the reason why animals take so readily to man and so easily, under friendly treatment, lay aside their shyness of him, lies in the fact that they do not see in him a being of a different order, but rather one related to themselves, then it would appear that they have stolen a march on us, and forestalled, from the time of our appearance on the stage, pregnant to them with such sinister possibilities, an idea which, if we except a few isolated pioneers, has only in quite recent times begun to get hold of our understanding.
That animals look upon man as one of themselves, and not as an object entirely beyond their horizon, is evidenced by the remarkable interest and curiosity regarding him and his doings shown by wild creatures, and by their desire to make friends with him as long as their confidence has not been met by tough rebuke and persecution, which is, alas! the usual response given by the destroyer of creation to such friendly advances.
It is our own fault only, if birds all the world over are not even now on the same footing of familiarity with us, as were the birds of the Monte Alverna when St. Francis of Assisi arrived there; or the birds of the Falklands and the Galapagos Islands when Darwin visited them; or as the birds of Southern Morocco are at the present day, or were, at least, under Mohammedan rule, a few years ago.
But even birds which have learned at their cost that to come within reach of man is an infinitely greater risk than to approach a wild cat or a snake, will still, when they believe themselves unobserved, and while taking all necessary precautions, often give way to the feeling of curiosity with which the appearanceof the long biped in unexpected localities and on unexpected occasions, inspires them.
I remember, in this connection, the fleeting visit to my camp, in the Livingstone Range, of a beautiful but shy and furtive bird, a trogon, which has no doubt developed these characteristics in consequence of the persecution which it owes to its magnificent plumage. (It was particularly mentioned, along with several other species, in the Field, about fifteen years ago, by a writer unknown to me, on account of the wholesale slaughter of birds, perpetrated for the benefit of a Paris modiste, by a French merchant living in one of the coast towns of German East Africa, with the help of an army of natives.) My visitor, however, whom his ‘instinct’ informed, perhaps, that from me he had nothing to fear, although still cautious, allowed his inquisitiveness to get the better of his shyness.
In front of my tent, about twenty yards away, and as much, perhaps, above the ground, two almost horizontal branches of two different trees formed a cross, the one reposing on the other. Every day, at 2 P.M., precisely when, after luncheon, I sat in the entrance to my tent, smoking my pipe, the trogon would suddenly, and as silently as a night-jar, alight on the lower of the two branches, on the side away from me, so that his body, in size about as large as that of a dove, was completely hidden. And then he would slowly, slowly, lift his head above the intervening branch, and scrutinize me and my dog and my tent, with strange and almost uncanny intensity. After looking thus for a while, down went the head again behind the branch, to reappear, a few minutes later, in the same cautious and furtive way.
Nothing in the camp had the slightest interest for the trogon besides myself and my immediate setting. To the native camp, which was some distance from his tree on the other side, he never gave a single glance, being no doubt perfectly well acquainted with natives and their ways. He continued his mysterious visits for several days in succession; and then, having, I suppose, come to the conclusion that he knew all about me that was worth knowing, he disappeared.
Wild birds quickly learn to distinguish a friend. It has often happened to me that, when I arrived in some locality, and pitched my tent close to a low tree, within a couple of days after my arrival, sometimes one small bird, sometimes more, arrived in the evening, immediately after sunset, and went to rest in the foliage for the night, and then kept up the habit for the whole duration of my stay, being confident that, so long as they slept near me, no wild animal would dare disturb their slumber.
Once when I was lying ill with fever, down in a canon off Lake Nyasa, a small blue kingfisher took his post on a low branch, not two yards outside my tent, where I could have hit him with a stick, and thence waged war on all insects which came near and attempted to come inside, to madden me with their humming and their buzzing. That kingfisher remained at his self-elected post the whole time that my illness lasted; and I have often thought that, had a ‘Herr Professor’ turned up in the neighborhood, with a rook-rifle, he would have run a fair chance of suddenly slipping off a cliff, or of swallowing a dose of Strophantus with his coffee, by mistake.
One wonders whether Henri Bergson, on whose shoulders has fallen the mantle of Emmanuel Kant, would have established his sweeping repartition of reason and ‘ instinct ’ between man and beast, — no doubt a most convenient and simple arrangement,— if he had variegated his scientific pursuits in Paris with occasional excursions into the Jungle.
None of the great naturalists have had much use for the conventional idea of ‘instinct’ versus ‘reason,’ at least as far as the vertebrata are concerned. Darwin expressed his opinion that no fundamental difference exists between man and the higher mammals in respect to their intellectual faculties; and L. H. Morgan, the historiographer of the American beaver, thought that ‘the misleading expression “instinct” ought altogether to be dropped.’
In a pool at the bottom of that cañon where the kingfisher watched over me during my illness, there lived a colony of frogs, which cheered up my sleepless nights with their musical performances. These concerts had exasperated me when they first started, and I had thought that I could see some excuse for those feudal lords in the Middle Ages, about whom we read that, to avoid being disturbed in their sleep, they kept an unfortunate menial all night near their castle moat, whose business was to beat the surface of the water with a long rod, in order to silence the Batrachians every time they started croaking. But my discontent, after I had, perforce, listened for a while, gradually gave way to attention, then to interest, and finally to appreciation and wonder.
It was quite impossible to fail to notice the system and the method which ruled in these choruses. There were different bands singing alternately in different keys, without ever clashing with one another; and the quality of the voices of each particular band differed from the quality of the voices of every other band; so that I came to the conclusion that each band was recruited from individuals belonging to one and the same category, classed, perhaps, according to sex, or age, or to the degree of skill attained. Bandmasters gave the signal to start, indicated the key, interrupted, sang a few notes by themselves, to make clear their meaning, ordered repeats, stopped performances. There were uninterrupted solos religiously listened to, performed no doubt, by recognized virtuosi; competitions between individuals and competitions between bands.
I felt that there was something strangely, weirdly human underneath it all. It may have been my fever; but then, we are told that in fever our perceptive faculties grow more acute. I came to the ineradicable conviction that frogs are intensely musical by nature; that they love harmony and enjoy it; and that their singing constitutes their relaxation after the business of the day is over. We may perhaps assume, in judging by analogy from the habits of singing birds, that the solos are competitions of troubadours, with the ultimate intention of delighting and attracting individuals of the opposite sex.
But it is difficult to see where instinct can come in here.
Even regarding the fantastic, inconceivably intricated, yet marvelously methodical habits of insects, which seem to have no other choice but that between a supernatural intelligence and an unerring, equally miraculous instinct, opinions do not all incline in favor of the latter.
One of their greatest antagonists in the cause of suffering humanity, but a more generous foe than one is accustomed to meet in these days, — W. Maxwell Leffroy, — has not hesitated to pay them the following tribute: ‘A dispassionate examination of insect life reveals that even man’s powers are as nothing to those of insect life; his senses weaker; his sociology and conduct of life far inferior to that of the social insect; and he himself comparatively lacking in the exhibition of altruism and right conduct shown by insects.’
II
Brehm, the greatest of German zoölogists, who can certainly not be taxed with lack of practical experience, has written in his treatise on the raven, that no one who has lived for any length of time in companionship with one of these birds will continue to adhere to the theory of instinct versus reason in connection with their kind.
That ravens have a compelling personality all their own, exceeding in forcefulness that of most creatures of the animal kingdom, with the sole exception, perhaps, of the lion, is manifest from the part which they have played in the affairs of men since the beginning of recorded history, and of the importance given to them in religious tradition, in mythology, in historical legends and in fairy tales.
We read in the book of Job (38,41) that the young of the raven ‘cry unto God’ for food; in Psalm 147, they are mentioned as being fed, apparently, as creatures entirely distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom; and elsewhere in the Bible we read that they brought food to Elias, as they are reported to have done, at later periods, to various holy hermits.
Odin has two tame ravens sitting at his right and left; ravens hold watch outside the Kyffhäuser where the Emperor Barbarossa, with his red beard grown through the marble table, waits for the resurrection of Germany; and the immortal Grip, as we know, is not wholly a product of Dickens’s imagination, but the faithful copy of an original who led a very tangible existence in the author’s house.
My personal experience of ravens in captivity is a very restricted one: I have known only two — one which lived in a large monastery of Cistercian monks, and delighted us small boys, when we visited it, by its antics and its talk; and one which belonged to an American lady — the wife of Field-Marshal Waldersee, born Miss Lee, and widowed Princess von der Nöer. This latter raven was a great favorite in the household, and was always brought from the country to Berlin, where it enjoyed comparative freedom in the courtyard of the house, being closely united in ties of friendship with its mistress’s Yorkshire terrier.
But if my experience of ravens in captivity is defective, I have, nevertheless, had many friends of that kind, only they were all independent and free individuals, who had never known bondage. And I may state at once that, strange as it may sound, the initial step to these acquaintances was invariably taken by the other side, never by myself!
All these ravens were Central Africans. Not unlike European ravens in size and shape, the only concession which they make to the fashion adopted by their family all over the dark continent, — namely, to redeem the monotony of its plumage by white colors somewhere on its body, — consists in a pear-shaped white patch on the nape of the neck, and in a white spot on the tip of the beak. This raven is called corvus albicollis, in some books on Central Africa; but whether it is identical with the corvus albicollis of South Africa seems doubtful. Brehm does not think that it is, and calls it corvus crassirostris in his natural history, which name bears testimony to the remarkable thickness of its beak.
The corvus crassirostris occurs in two distinct social combinations: as a feudal lord on uninhabited mountain-ranges, and as a communist in the neighborhood of European settlements of some importance. But, unlike its cousin, the carrion-crow, it does not descend into the plains. My friends belonged invariably to the first of these two social categories; and what I have to say here relates to that alone.
The custom is for one pair to occupy a reserve in which other ravens are not tolerated, their own children excepted, so long as they have not created a household of their own — an event which, among ravens, probably takes place as late as it does among the large birds of prey.
During my rambles on the mountain ranges in the vicinity of Lake Nyasa, as soon as I had finished pitching my tent, the pair ruling in that particular district invariably made an appearance and, sitting down at some distance from the camp, on a boulder or a stumped tree growing from the rocks, surveyed us critically. After a time they flew away again, often to come back on the following morning, on other occasions to return no more, having obviously been dissatisfied with our appearance. In time, I adopted the habit of propitiating these potentates by offerings adapted to their taste, just as I would have done with a native chief, when entering within the precincts of his authority.
When I remained for any length of time camped in the same place, as was my habit in the rainy season, during which —on mountain ranges of which some, like the Livingston Range, average 8000 feet in height, and are, besides, intersected by many streams — traveling ceases to be pleasant, I continued these peace-offerings from day to day, as a token of appreciation of the friendly interest taken in my affairs by my visitors. They, on their side, soon began to appear in my camp regularly every morning, with that remarkable punctuality which animals acquire so much more quickly than men, and which the French assert to be la politesse des rois. Sometimes they stayed in the camp a few hours only, sometimes all day; but they always left toward evening, flying in the direction of some mountain fastness, where they had their home.
They rewarded me for my hospitality from the very beginning, by chasing away from the vicinity of the camp, with incredible energy and violence, all, even the largest, birds of prey which came near it. This was an invaluable service, deserving of my undying gratitude, as I often kept small pets which, but for the ravens’ vigilance, would of a certainty, sooner or later, have fallen victims to the large and fierce rapacious birds which abound all over Central Africa.
All these ravens, after a time, learned to come at my call, and answered it, sometimes even at a considerable distance from my camp, when I was out collecting mineral specimens; often also, on these occasions, they joined me unexpectedly of their own accord; so that I made it a rule by and by never to start in the morning without taking with me something for them to eat.
During the rainy season of 1912-1013, I lived in a small forest on one of the slopes of the Gorge through which the Ndumbi River descends into the plains, on its long journey toward the Indian Ocean. I had spent the preceding rainy season in another camp, but close to this one, and there had made friends with two ravens, to whom I had given the classic names Seneca and Poppæa.
It had been clear at the time that Poppæa had a nest with young ones, as she used regularly to fly away, after each meal, in the direction of a distant cluster of trees, her beak and gullet filled with provisions. And, to my great surprise and pleasure, as soon as I arrived on the Ndumbi in October, 1912, after an absence of six months, Seneca and Poppæa came, accompanied by two full-grown youngsters. That the latter were their children was obvious, because otherwise they would never have been tolerated near the camp. But they soon gave me another proof of the fact, by their own remarkable behavior.
One morning, when Seneca and Poppæa had been feeding with ‘ravenous’ appetite, faster than the two others were able to follow, the latter, afraid of seeing the whole breakfast swallowed before their eyes ere they had time to assuage their own hunger, all of a sudden gave up the contest, ceased eating, opened wide their beaks, and began to beat their wings against their sides, for all the world like tiny little nestlings when they see their parents arriving with food. Whereupon, both Seneca and Poppæa interrupted their own meal, and fed from their beaks those two beggars who were fully as large as themselves.
These two youngsters, less experienced than their parents, who perhaps had drawn their circles around the peaks of the Livingstone Range a century before the arrival of Dr. David, soon became much more familiar than their elders, taking food from my fingers without fear or haste — a thing which the old ones never did without showing a certain hesitation. These four remained my constant and cheerful companions during the whole of the rainy season, which lasted eight months. Every day, in the early dawn, they came through the air, cawing as they approached, and a moment later they entered into the large bamboo shed which I had erected over my tent, advancing with a true sailor’s roll, and very self-conscious, — as intelligent animals always are at the beginning of a visit, — eager to share the maize cakes of my early breakfast.
Like all my raven friends, those on the Ndumbi soon looked upon me as their chief source of food, as became apparent from the long stays they made in my camp, and from the provisions which they were in the habit of taking with them on leaving in the afternoon. But they went, now and then, on hunting expeditions of their own; and several times, when they had failed to make their usual appearance in the morning, I subsequently ascertained that a native hunting-party had passed in the neighborhood on the same day; as I have mentioned elsewhere, my Chikala ravens also remained absent from my flesh-pots when the leopards of those mountains were on the hunting path.
Although they accepted and ate nearly every kind of food that I offered them, they had, of course, their preferences, and to a few things they objected entirely. Of eggs, either raw or boiled, they ate only the yolk, and absolutely refused to touch the white. I have wondered at this until I read, quite recently, what has greatly increased the very high opinion I have of ravens, that is, that the yolk only of eggs contains the vitamines which are so important a part of our nutriment, and the white none at all! Food made with flour they liked only fried, but not otherwise; as, for instance, pancakes or chupatties.
Needless to say, it is meat, raw or cooked, which they prefer to all other forms of diet, and they do not mind if it is slightly tainted, as we do not, either, where game is concerned. But, again like ourselves, although they are passionately fond of fish, they will not touch it if it is not absolutely fresh, and refuse even boiled fish which has been standing overnight, showing themselves much more fastidious in this respect than the Central African natives, who do not appear to mind in the least fish with a very pronounced haut goût.
Occasionally my boarders caught a mouse, which they killed before they swallowed it, breaking its neck against a stone, by swinging it by its tail held tightly in their beak, being wiser in their generation than the poor young lady mentioned in a magazine a few years ago, who swallowed a live chameleon as an advertisement and died in horrible pain in consequence, it being found at the autopsy that the chameleon was still alive!
Like European ravens and some breeds of dogs, African ravens delight to hide their surplus wealth of food in cunningly devised caches, after the manner of Arctic explorers, sometimes betraying themselves in quite human fashion, when one comes near, by conflicting attempts to combine an appearance of indifference with profound watchfulness. In one respect, however, they differ advantageously from their European cousin — although my companions had every opportunity to steal, I never missed a single thing.
It has been stated by Europeans that the corvus crassirostris of Central Africa kills little chickens, like the bloodthirsty corvus albicollis of South Africa, which has even been known to attack and kill sheep, as does also the South African baboon. I am confident, however, that my friends have been calumniated; it may be that isolated misdeeds of single individuals with perverted tastes have been magnified into a general habit of the whole tribe. Not a single authenticated case of such a crime has come to my notice; and, moreover, all the natives whom I have asked were unanimous in asserting that they never do. Natives do not kill ravens; if the latter were a danger to their poultry, they would wage against them the same relentless war which they wage against hawks, whom they follow, when they surprise them in flagranti delicto, with a chicken between their fangs, by running from tree to tree for miles, until the bird, exhausted by the weight of the fowl, which it either will not drop, or from which it cannot extricate its claws, collapses on the branch of a tree, and is killed.
The Europeans who accused the corvus crassirostris of kidnapping chickens very probably wanted an excuse for exercising their skill in shooting them; besides, many of the old pioneers are said to have been partial to corbeau en casserole, like Napoleon’s Veterans.
On the Ndumbi, beef was occasionally sent to me from a place some forty miles away, where the magistrate regularly killed a bullock for his posse of police. The arrival was usually quite uncertain, but it was always hailed in advance by Seneca, Poppæa and their children, whom I had called Aliturus and Messalina: as soon as the messenger with the meat was within a few miles of my camp, they would suddenly show signs of excitement, and then rise into the air and fly cawing to meet him.
The Central African raven, in its character, much resembles our own, and, like it, combines cunning and prudence with familiarity and confidence. It would be a mistake, however, to think that all individuals are cut after the same pattern. Among ravens, as among so many kinds of the higher animals, there is as much differentiation of character as there is among Europeans, and perhaps more than among certain races of aborigines. This is not necessarily a compliment, if we admit that strong differentiation is essential to the intermediate stage between the lowest and the highest state of development, while it flattens out at both ends. But it appeals; for personality, as Goethe says, is our greatest pleasure.
One of my four ravens, Aliturus, was a great humorist . It was his special delight to play with Rikki-Tikki, my ‘banded’ mongoose. Everyday they amused themselves together. Aliturus followed Rikki-Tikki, now in short jumps, now in his rolling gait, intent on catching the tip of his tail. Rikki-Tikki, as cunning as he, and well aware of his intention, pretended to notice nothing, and, with an occasional furtive squint backward, strolled slowly along, nowstopping for a moment to dig, nowstanding up on his hind legs like a bear, to sniff the perfume of a flower, nowjumping after a grasshopper; but at the very moment when Aliturus reached out for the pinch, he made one leap into the air and round, with lightning-like rapidity, only to miss, sometimes only by a fraction of an inch, his aggressor, who immediately retired, flying low above the ground, with Rikki-Tikki in hot pursuit.
I have had no experience of a breed of animals in which the males do not show conspicuous courtesy to the females. It is universal, and I see no reason to disbelieve the gentleman who assured me that he had seen, in the Gaboon, a male gorilla peel a pineapple and then hand the fruit to his consort.
There is no difference, in this respect, between birds and mammals. Indeed, it would appear as if deference toward the ‘weaker’ sex were as fundamental a natural law, as the love of the mother for her offspring.
I had excellent opportunity, while I stayed in the Chikala Range of Nyasaland, to ascertain that ravens make no exception to this general rule; which is, after all, no matter for surprise, when one comes to consider the high level of their intellect. Their chief article of diet in that locality consisted of fish, which was brought to me from the lake, every day; and as I always had it boiled it was moist, of course, and had therefore to be presented to them in a plate, which I put on the verandah of my house.
There were two boarders only — Mrs. Grip and Mr. Nevermore. I had soon found out who was who, from the fact that Mrs. Grip made her appearance on the premises much later as a rule than Mr. Nevermore, as she was, no doubt, reluctant to leave her nest in the forest, and her young, before the sun had ascended sufficiently high in the sky to give them warmth, and because she left my place three or four times a day, with as much food in her beak and gullet as she could carry. She took the greatest pains to pack the food well, so as to avoid the risk of dropping something on the road (although I saw it happen occasionally), and, at the same time, to take as great a quantity as she could possibly manage.
The preparations for each flight were most painstaking: she always disgorged her cargo three or four times on the verandah before she felt quite satisfied; and then she often made false starts and came back for some slight alteration in the disposition of her articles. When everything was all right, and she was well under weigh, she always uttered, notwithstanding her full beak, one loud, unmistakable call, which I never heard from her on any other occasion, to inform Mr. Nevermore that she was now leaving for good — a call which was as certainly meant to express, ‘Now I’m off!' as if she had shouted it in plain English. Nevermore sometimes followed, sometimes stayed on. Occasionally he, too, carried away some food, but never anywhere near as much as his lady.
Nevermore showed his touching regard for Grip in that he never dreamed of touching the smallest piece of food before she had fully satisfied herself. When they were both present when the dinner was served, he waited patiently until she gave him leave to approach by stepping aside; but if the plate was put on the verandah before she had arrived, he flew up to the top of a tree near the house, and there started cawing frantically and unceasingly, until she came sweeping down and onto the verandah with a great rush of wings, which always reminded me of Paolo and Francesca. She, of course, always fell to at once, as she was fully justified in doing as the mother of a family.
On two occasions only did my four ravens in Ndumbi make an exception to the rule that no other ravens were allowed in the neighborhood of the camp. Twice a single stranger appeared in the reserve, who was good-humoredly tolerated for several days, and then left.
I can only assume that it was a young raven with matrimonial intentions, the scion of another dynasty, who came to propose to Messaline after sounding the views of her parents. On both occasions the visit remained without visible result .
My hope that a pair of my raven friends would, one day, follow my safari, and stick to it, was never, alas! realized. They would follow the caravan for a time, flying above it and apparently much excited; but not in a single instance did they accompany me as far as the first camping-place of the journey; obeying, evidently, the unwritten law in the code of ravens, not to penetrate into foreign reserves.
Swallow-tailed brown kites, so common all over Africa, are as willing as ravens to make friends with man, and frequently appear in camping-places. They were always ignominiously chased away by my ravens, but once, in the Pare mountains, where I never saw the corvus crassirostris, I formed an alliance cordiale with one of them, which became very tame. Although perfectly adult when we first met, it soon learned to come at my call, and even to my table at meals. Its habit was to come flying high up in the air, whistling softly, poise for an instant over my head, and then drop, ‘like a thunderbolt.’ But, charming fellow though he was, I am sorry to say that, unlike the ravens, he was utterly dishonest. He successively stole, from under my very nose, my shaving-brush, a teaspoon, a table-knife, and a napkin; and he even tried to steal my hat!
The catholicity of that bird’s taste in food was surprising. There was nothing in my own bill of fare that it would not eat; to scones it was especially partial, but it also swallowed boiled rice and potatoes with gusto.
As it was apparently quite alone, and I never saw another of its kind in that neighborhood, I fondly hoped, as I did with regard to the ravens, that it would follow me when I should leave.
But I was deceived in this case as in the other, although it, too, showed excitement when it saw the caravan depart. It followed for about a mile, flying wildly about high above our heads, and then suddenly turned back.
The drawback about these friendships formed in the course of a vagabond life is, that, when they come to their inevitable and abrupt end, one cannot give to those who will be left behind one word of warning or preparation; so that the departure must, in their eyes, appear in the character of a callous and heartless desertion. Indeed, if one looks coolly at the question, there can be no doubt that it is distinctly unfair to accustom to a life of care and comfort creatures which, in their ordinary existence, have to exert themselves all day long to find food for themselves and their offspring, and then, when they have got used to being fed regularly and in plenty, to throw them back to the necessity of shifting for themselves, like children who have been brought up in the expectancy of wealth and in luxury, who, at their father’s death, find themselves penniless.