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Bentarasko Benta Section 14
Page 08
The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good evidence that they will bite severely when irritated, a female _Hylobates agilis_ having so severely lacerated one man with her long canines that he died; while she had injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but if threatened she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture.
It will be seen how much we owe to patient investigators. The results are, indeed, bewildering. They make us acquainted with a people the very existence of whom was not known a few years back. Though the whole life of those ancient races seemed hopelessly lost in the night of time, the gloom is irradiated by the light of modern science, which lays before our astonished vision the remains of arts and industries of the primitive tribes that occupied Europe during the morning-time of human life.
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality--the story of an escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times--how to escape. The stories of Joseph, of Odysseus, of the prodigal son, of the Pilgrim's Progress, of the "Ugly Duckling," of Sintram, to name only a few out of a great number, they are all stories of escapes. It is the same with all lovestories. "The course of true love never can run smooth," says the old proverb, and love-stories are but tales of a man or a woman's escape from the desert of lovelessness into the citadel of love. Even tragedies like those of OEdipus and Hamlet have the same thought in the background. In the tale of OEdipus, the old blind king in his tattered robe, who had committed in ignorance such nameless crimes, leaves his two daughters and the attendants standing below the old pear-tree and the marble tomb by the sacred fountain; he says the last faint words of love, till the voice of the god comes thrilling upon the air: "OEdipus, why delayest thou?"
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