There is another baboon called the drill, which is not unlike the mandrill in many respects, but the swellings on its face are not nearly as large, and they remain black all through its life. It is a much smaller animal, too, and looks, on the whole, very much like a mandrill while it is quite young.
Almost as odd-looking as the mandrill, though in quite a different way, is the gelada, which is found in Abyssinia. Perhaps we may compare it to a black poodle with a very long and thick mane upon its neck and shoulders. When the animal sits upright this mane entirely covers the upper part of its shoulders, so that a gelada looks very much as if it were wearing a coachman's mantle of long fur.
In some parts of Abyssinia geladas are very numerous, living among the mountains in bands of two or three hundred. Like the chacmas in South Africa, they are very mischievous in the orchards and plantations, always making their raids by night. It is said that on one occasion they actually stopped no less a personage than a Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and prevented him from proceeding on his journey for several hours.
The story is, that as the Duke was traveling in Abyssinia his road lay through a narrow pass, overhung with rocky cliffs; that one of his attendants, catching sight of a number of geladas upon the rocks above, fired at them; that the angry baboons at once began to roll down great stones upon the path below, and that before they could be driven off they succeeded in completely blocking the road, so that the Duke's carriage could not be moved until the stones had been cleared away.
Whether this story is altogether true or not, we cannot say. But there can be no doubt that geladas are very warlike animals. Not only will they attack human beings who interfere with them, they also attack other baboons. When they are raiding an orchard, for instance, they sometimes meet with a band of Arabian baboons, which have come there for the same purpose as themselves. A fierce battle then takes place. First of all the geladas try to roll down stones upon their rivals. Then they rush down and attack them with the utmost fury, and very soon the orchard is filled with maddened baboons, tumbling and rolling over one another, biting and tearing and scratching each other, and shrieking with furious rage.