Old for a chimpanzee in the wild—he was in his fifties—he had dropped to a low rank and had to pant-grunt to almost every other adult male. Years ago he had been the alpha, but his reign, characterized by his frequent beatings of the females, had come to an end. Eslom too on occasion beat the females—such is the manner of chimpanzee males—but, whenever he had caught and killed a monkey, he always shared the meat first with them, and in doing so he had patiently generated loyalty.
