Why didn't they eat the monkey?

Yes, the firing of all six shots was pretty absurd. Not only might they have been heard by the cutthroats who'd just left the camel, but that ammo could have been used for defense against other thugs, to maintain order among the passengers, to shoot food later, or to signal other people sighted later.

And the camel didn't have to be shot at all. Just remove its load, untie it, and let the poor guy find water and fend for itself. Lots of animals & people survive while lame. The camel was useless for carrying a load, but load-free it might have survived just fine.

Eating the monkey would have been borderline cannibalism. It was part of the group, consumed very little, and contributed to the group's morale. Besides, divided among seven men, it wouldn't have gone far (a light snack, at best - the equivalent of one or two of the figs that were plentiful).

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Also, I always found it stupid that Towns unloaded their only weapon into that camel when he could likely have done it with two shots. Not sure if Watson was carrying any additional ammo. - prettyboy2000

It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I've always taken Towns's unloading the pistol into the camel as his emotional outburst, his rage and futility at having seen that two men with whom he'd been living for several days in extreme conditions have had their throats cut by the bandits. One would hope to think more clearly than he in those kinds of conditions.

As for the monkey, I agree with the other poster who noted that it would not have amounted to much food. I suspect that had the food run out before the water, the monkey would be on the menu. And the camel. And the men already dead. But as for the camel, I wonder if its meat is salty, and whether anyone knew that, which is why it was not seized upon as a food source.

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