RESPECT PAID TO THE SACRED APES. 69 



the monkeys frequently came into the room where we were sitting, 

 carrying off bread and other things from the breakfast-table. If we were 

 sleeping or sitting in a corner of the room, they would ransack every 

 other part. 



" I often feigned sleep, to observe their manoeuvres, and the caution 

 with which they proceeded to examine everything. 1 was much amused 

 to see their sagacity and alertness. They would often spring twelve or 

 fifteen feet from the house to another, with one, sometimes two young 

 ones under their bellies, carrying with them also, a loaf of bread, some 

 sugar, or other article ; and to have seen the care they always took of 

 their young would have been a good lesson to many mothers. 



" I was one of a party at Teekarry, in the Bahar district ; our tents 

 were pitched in a large mango garden, and our horses were picketed 

 in the same garden at a little distance off. When we were at dinner, a 

 Syce came to us, complaining that some of the horses had broken loose, 

 in consequence of being frightened by monkeys on the trees ; that, with 

 their chattering and breaking off the dry branches in leaping about, the 

 rest would also get loose, if they were not driven away. 



" As soon as dinner was over, 1 went out with m)' gun io drive them 

 off, and I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down 

 to the lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped 

 suddenly, and coolly put its paw to the part wounded, covered with 

 blood, and held it out for me to see : I was so much hurt at the time, 

 that it has left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since 

 fired a gun at any of the tribe. 



" Almost immediately on my return to the party, before I had fully 

 described what had passed, a Syce came to inform us that the monkey 

 was dead ; we ordered the Syce to bring it to us, but by the time he 

 returned, the other monkeys had carried the dead one off, and none of 

 them could anywhere be seen. 



" I have been informed by a gentleman of great respectability, on 

 whose veracity I can rely (as he is not the least given to relating wonder- 

 ful stories), that in the district of Cooch-Bahar, a very large tract of land 

 is actually considered by the inhabitants to belong to a tribe of monkeys 

 inhabiting the hills near it; and when the natives cut their different kinds 

 of grain, they always leave about a tenth part piled in heaps for the 

 monkeys. And as soon as their portion is marked out, they come down 

 from the hills in a large body, and carry all that is allotted for them to 



