348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the hanumans have their sacred groves, and keep together in troops 

 of fifty or sixty adults, and, in spite of hard times, these associations 

 multiply like the monastic orders of mediaeval Europe ; but they must 

 all be provided for, though the natives should have to eke out their 

 crops with the wild-rice of the Jumna swamp-jungles. 



The strangest part of the superstition is that this charity results 

 by no means from a feeling of benevolence toward animals in general, 

 but from the exclusive veneration of a special subdivision of the 

 monkey tribe. An orthodox Hindoo must not willingly take the life 

 of the humblest fellow-creature, but he would not move a finger to save 

 a starving dog, and has no hesitation in stimulating a beast of burden 

 with a dagger-like goad and other contrivances that would invoke the 

 avenging powers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 

 mals. Nor would he shrink from extreme measures in defending his 

 fields from the ravages of low-caste monkeys. Dr. Allen Mackenzie 

 once saw a swarm of excited natives running toward an orchard where 

 the shaking of the branches betrayed the presence of arboreal maraud- 

 ers. Some of them carried slings, others clubs and cane-spears. But 

 soon they came back crestfallen. " What's the matter ? " inquired the 

 doctor ; " did they get away from you ? " 



" Kapa-Muni," was the laconic reply, " sacred monkeys." Holy 

 baboons that must not be interrupted in their little pastimes. They 

 had expected to find a troop of common makaques, wanderoos, or 

 other profane four-handers, and returned on tiptoe, like Marry at's 

 sergeant who went to arrest an obstreperous drunkard, and recognized 

 his commanding officer. Unarmed Europeans can not afford to brave 

 these prejudices. Captain Elphinstone's gardener nearly lost his life 

 for shooting a thievish hanuman ; a mob of raging bigots chased him 

 from street to street till he gave them the slip in a Mohammedan sub- 

 urb, where a sympathizing Unitarian helped him to escape through the 

 back-alleys. The interference of his countrymen would hardly have 

 saved him, for the crowd increased from minute to minute, and even 

 women joined in the chase, and threatened to cure his impiety with a 

 turnip-masher. 



This impiety, say the Brahmans, is merely the effect of ignorance. 

 Foreigners are apt to mistake a hanuman for a common yahoo, a filthy, 

 impudent bush-whacker, while the facts are as follows : The hanuman 

 is a lineal descendant of the great hero-ape who helped the Light-gods 

 in suppressing the power of Ravan, the prince of darkness. The war 

 raged for years with varying success, and the sun-spirits were once 

 almost nonplused, when their long-tailed ally bethought himself of 

 a stratagem that completely discomfited their adversaries : He set the 

 whole Island of Ceylon afire and escaped just in time to attend a grand 

 council of the sun-gods, who then rewarded his services by an hereditary 

 sinecure. In the midst of a solemn war-dance he discovered that his 

 own tail was ablaze, and had to save himself by a hurried trip to the 



