In the country where Mappo lived there were many people called
natives--that is they had never lived in any country but their own, and
they were a queer sort of people.

They wore very few clothes, for it was too hot to need many. They were
a black, savage people, and they lived by hunting with their spears, and
bows and arrows. They hunted wild animals--lions, tigers, elephants and
monkeys. Some of the wild animals they used for food, and others they
sold to white men who wanted them for circuses and menageries. And
monkeys were generally the easiest to catch.

Some of these black, half-clothed, savage natives had spread a vine net
in the forest. The net, being made of vines, could not be seen until
some animal got close to it. And to make monkeys come close to the net,
so it would fall down over them, when one end was pulled loose by a
native (hidden behind a tree) bits of cocoanut were sprinkled about.
Monkeys are very fond of cocoanut, and the natives knew, when the little
long-tailed creatures went to pick up the white pieces, that they would
come nearer and nearer to the trap-net, until they were caught. That was
what had happened to Mappo.

The little monkey tried and tried again to break out of the net, but he
could not. It was too strong. Tighter and tighter it was pulled about
him, until he could struggle no more. He lay there, a sad little lump of
monkey in the net.

Then some black men, with long sharp sticks, or spears, gathered about
him, and talked very fast and loud. You would not have understood what
they said, if you had heard them, any more than you can understand dog