Invoking Richard Burton...

"I was fit for nothing but to be shot at for six pence a day," recalled Sir Richard Burton of being thrown out of Trinity College and entering the East India Company of the British Army. Burton was considered peculiar by some of his fellow soldiers who accused him of "going native" and called him "the White Nigger". Indeed he had many peculiar habits that set him apart from other soldiers. While in the army, he kept a large menagerie of tame monkeys in the hopes of learning their language. He also earned the name "Ruffian Dick" for his "demonic ferocity as a fighter and because he had fought in single combat more enemies than perhaps any other man of his time."

(The Sensorium - Burton's monkeys assembled a table, by Walton Ford)