THE MONKEY TRIBE. 19 



which were regaling themselves at the same lime. They 

 resented his disturbance, and the tormented bandar, in 

 his hurry to escape, came upon a thorn-covered roof, 

 where he lay stung, torn, and bleeding. He spurted the 

 stolen bon-bons from his pouches, and barking hoarsely, 

 looked the picture of misery. The noise of the tiles 

 which he had dislodged in his retreat brought out the 

 inhabitants, and among them the vendor of sweets, with 

 his turban unwound, and streaming two yards behind 

 him. All joined in laughing at the wretched monkey ; 

 but their religious reverence for him induced them to 

 go to his assistance : they picked out his thorns, and he 

 limped away to the woods quite crestfallen. 



The traveller came in constant contact with monkeys 

 in his occupations of clearing land and planting, and at 

 first, as he lay still among the brushwood, they gam- 

 bolled round him as they would round the natives. 

 This peaceable state of things, however, did not last 

 when he established a field of sugar-canes in the newly- 

 cleared jungle. He tells the story so well, that I must 

 be allowed to use his own expressions : 



4 Every beast of the field seemed leagued against this 

 devoted patch of sugar-cane. The wild elephants 

 came and browzed in it ; the jungle hogs rooted it up, 

 and munched it at their leisure ; the jackals gnawed 

 the stalks into squash ; and the wild deer ate the tops 

 of the young plants. Against all these marauders 

 there was an obvious remedy, to build a stout fence 

 round the cane-field. This was done accordingly ; and 

 a deep trench dug outside, that even the wild elephant 

 did not deem it prudent to cross. 



4 The wild hogs came and inspected the trench and 

 the palisades beyond. A bristly old tusker was ob- 



