184 THE HUNTING GEOUNDS, ETC. 



smothered his resentment until his return from 

 Madras, when each man filled his haversack with 

 rice and dhal, (a kind of sweet bean,) and on re- 

 passing through the town he threw it on the roots 

 of all the tiled houses, on which lived hundreds of 

 monkeys, occasioning a most ludicrous scene — for 

 immediately the tiles were seen flying in clouds 

 into the streets, until the greater part of the town 

 was imroofed ; for the monkeys, finding the grains 

 slip under the tiles, Kfted them up, and threw them 

 into the street, and as they took one up the rice 

 slipped under the next, and so on, until a good 

 roof was demolished in a few minutes, to the utter 

 disgust and mortification of the Brahmins, who dare 

 not molest the monkeys, considering these animals 

 sacred, as being the incarnation of their powerful 

 god, Hanimann. 



After we had imbibed some cooled Bass, the best 



beverage for India, B , who was a fisherman, 



went down to the tank with his rod, and in the 

 course of half an hour landed over a dozen fine 

 murrel, (a voracious kind of fish, somewhat resem- 

 bling the jack,) from four to eight pounds in weight. 

 On cutting them open we found the inside full of 

 leeches, so we declined having them put upon our 

 table, to the great satisfaction of Chineah and the 

 gang, who pronounced them delicious. 



