6 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
Some years ago Mr. Piddington communicated to the Asiatic Society 
an account of some “‘ Monkey-men” he came across on the borders of 
the Palamow jungle. He was in the habit of employing the aboriginal 
tribes to work for him, and on one occasion a party of his men found 
in the jungle a man and woman in a state of starvation, and brought 
them in. They were both very short in stature, with disproportionately 
long arms, which in the man were covered with a reddish-brown hair. 
They looked almost more like baboons than human beings, and their 
language was unintelligible, except that words here and there resembled 
those in one of the Kolarian dialects. By signs, and by the help of 
these words, one of the Dhangars managed to make out that they lived 
in the depths of the forest, but had to fly from their people on cccount 
of a blood feud. Mr. Piddington was anxious to send them down to 
Calcutta, but before he could do so, they decamped one night, and fled 
again to their native wilds. Those jungles are, I believe, still in a great 
measure unexplored ; and, if some day they are opened out, it is to be 
hoped that the “ Monkey-men ” will be again discovered.* 
The lowest type with which we are familiar is the Andamanese, 
and the wilder sort of these will hardly bear comparison with even 
the degraded Australian or African Bosjesman, and approximate in 
debasement to the Fuegians. 
The Andamanese are small in stature—the men averaging about five 
feet, the women less. They are very dark, I may say black, but here 
the resemblance to the Negro ceases. They have not the thick lips and 
flat nose, nor the peculiar heel of the Negro. In habit they are in 
small degree above the brutes, architecture and agriculture being un- 
known. The only arts they are masters of are limited to the manufacture 
of weapons, such as spears, bows and arrows, and canoes. ‘They 
wear no kind of dress, but, when flies and mosquitoes are troublesome, 
plaster themselves with mud. The women are fond of painting them- 
selves with red ochre, which they lay thickly over their heads, after 
scraping off the hair with a flint-knife. They swim and dive like ducks, 
and run up trees like monkeys. Though affectionate to their children, 
they are ruthless to the stranger, killing every one who happens to be 
cast away on their inhospitable shores. ‘They have been accused of 
cannibalism, but this is open to doubt. The bodies of those they have 
killed have been found dreadfully mutilated, almost pounded to a jelly, 
but no portion had been removed.t 
* There has been lately exhibited in London a child from Borneo which has 
several points in common with the monkey—hairy face and arms, the hair on the 
fore-arm being reversed, as in the apes. 
+ Since the above was written there has been published in the ‘ Journal of the 
Anthropological Institute,’ vol. xii., a most interesting and exhaustive paper on these 
people by Mr. E. H. Man, F.R.G.S., giving them credit for much intelligence. 
