ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 267 



enough to grant the same privileges to monkeys and crocodiles. In Lucknow 

 there are two large monkey-hospitals, and several mahakhunds, where swarms of 

 able-bodied Entellus-apes (" Honumans ") and Rhesus baboons are fed at the 

 expense of true believers. They get rice-pudding and sirup for dinner, while 

 many hard-working but less sacred bipeds have to eat their rice " straight." But 

 during the Sepoy rebellion the Mohammedan insurgents destroyed one of these 

 establishments and expelled the inmates, including several venerable specimens 

 of the white-headed Entellus, the holiest animal in the menagerie of the Hindoo 

 Pantheon. For many weeks these long-tailed saints perambulated the streets in 

 quest of cold lunch ; and an eye-witness, Mrs. Allen Mackenzie, describes the 

 indignation of the orthodox natives, who organized relief committees and mon- 

 key soup-houses, though the protracted siege had almost exhausted their own 

 resources. To make matters worse, the streets swarmed with profane monkeys 

 who had to forage for a living, and had no hesitation in black-mailing their sacred 

 relatives. The Honumans had to submit to such outrages; nay, some of them 

 learned to eat their rice-pudding without sirup, and probably consoled them- 

 selves with the hope of a better hereafter. They wandered from house to house, 

 and in their great distress even accepted the assistance of unbelievers, but they 

 absolutely refused to work. 



A Cheerful Summer Resort. On the hunting-grounds of the lower 



Lena, where the Fahrenheit thermometer often remains for weeks at 45 below 

 zero, the Russian convicts are dressed in linen jackets, and wear tretschhi (raw- 

 hide shoes) without stockings. And yet they form the elite corps of the Siberian 

 exiles murderers, forgers, and highway robbers. Political offenders are sent 

 to the mines of Berezov, where the average duration of life, or rather of slow 

 death, is eight years and four months. The majority of the convicts die in less 

 than five years. Minors work there from 6 a. m. till noon, and from 2 to 6 

 p. m. ; adults from 6 a. m. to 6 p. m., without intermission. They have no Sunday, 

 and only one holiday in the year, the birthday of the Czar. Their rations are 

 those of a private soldier, viz., rye-bread and salt beef. After dark they are 

 confined in log-pens, and have to pass the nights of the long Siberian winter 

 between two army-blankets, the one covering the rough-hewed logs of the floor, 

 the other their starved bodies, wrapped in the coarse linen uniform which they 

 are permitted to change only once a month. Chimney-fires are allowed during 

 the supper-hour, i. e., from 6 to 7 p.m., but the majority swallow their food in 

 the dark, and devote the short interval of light and warmth to entomological 

 researches. The discipline is that of a dog-kennel kicks and cudgel-blows and 

 malingering is discouraged by a simple and effective method : the sick (wounded 

 excepted) are put on quarter-rations. Attempts at flight are less frequent than 

 riots, for recaptured fugitives were knouted; mutineers are only shot. 



Human beings can get used to worse things than Siberian rye-bread, but 

 never to Siberian frosts, and the monthly fuel rations of the Berezov convicts 

 are limited to one stavsnih (about half a cord) per cabin, though near the mines 

 of the western slope the same mountain-range abounds with densely timbered 

 districts. In an interview with the commander of Berezov, a correspondent of 

 the "Cologne Gazette" suggested the propriety of removing the settlement to 

 the timber-region. " It would probably please the prisoners," replied the com- 

 mander, but the comfort of their keepers was of more consequence, and all his 

 subalterns agreed that, on account of the trout-streams and cranberry-brakes of 

 the eastern slope, Berezov was a more pleasant summer resort. 



