134 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



fattened upon the meat-offal of the large city. The ma- 

 hakhunds (literally, "big yards"), or monkey-almshouses, 

 are found near every town and larger village throughout 

 the Eastern presidencies ; the honumans have special 

 establishments where no low-caste monkeys need apply ; 

 sick and decrepit honumans and rhesus-baboons are 

 tenderly nursed in several well-appointed hospitals that 

 derive their resources from stipends or pious contribu- 

 tions. Wealthy Buddhists, as well as Brahmins, have 

 often secured a local immortality of glory by the foun- 

 dation of new mahakhunds, whose charters are some- 

 times codicilled with peculiar provisions : that vulgar 

 monkeys and pigs shall be rigidly excluded from the 

 benefits of the stipend ; that such interdicts shall be 

 suspended in years of famine ; that the distribution of 

 food shall always be superintended by a dhevadar of 

 the charitable race of Sahib Jaghir Shing; that bhunder- 

 baboons shall be entitled to two full meals a day, the 

 surplus, if any, to be distributed for the benefit of pil- 

 grims and low-caste monkeys, with the exception of the 

 dancing macaques kept by jugglers and infidels; that 

 legal fast-days must be duly observed, etc., etc. 



Besides, the favorites of Brahm find a free lunch at 

 the house of every true believer. A sacred bull must 

 never be expelled from the enclosure of a truck-gardener 

 without a fair compensation, — a sugar-turnip or a hand- 

 ful of dates. Honumans are rarely interfered with if 

 they honor the premises of a native with an unexpected 



