ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 103 



men so profoundly. Yet we should not wish to retrace the 



steps of progress ; the goal must be nearer for us, however 



distant still, that goal of which Tennyson speaks as 



' The one far-off, divine event 

 To which the whole creation moves,' 



and from which some would exclude all animals — a large 

 proportion of ' the whole ' — though Bishop Butler in his 

 day, and Charles Kingsley more recently, would have them 

 excluded from nothing when wrongs come to be righted, 

 arguing that there cannot be two sorts of justice at 

 one bar. 



But to return to my strange little friends. It was a 

 great amusement taming these wild little women by offer- 

 ing them things to eat — the first idea that occurs to one in 

 coaxing an animal to make friends. It had to be something 

 familiar, of course, cocoanut or jaggheri, or something else 

 that they had tasted before. I don't doubt that a fine grub 

 would have enticed them more quickly than anything, but 

 that was beyond me. I felt it quite a triumph when, for the 

 first time, they came round their coign of vantage — the 

 rock — and advanced towards me, one behind another, in 

 a string, each pushing her neighbour to the front that she 

 should bear the brunt of the encounter. 



If I stirred the entire string dropped on all fours, not 

 exactly as an animal does, but using their hands to get 

 along with as much as their feet, and were gone ! Or if 

 one of them did advance within reach of my proffered deli- 

 cacy, I had to keep as still as if I were dealing with a shy 

 beast or bird ; then a tiny, shapely brown hand snatched 

 at it, and the bold owner was off to a safe distance in an 

 instant, to begin nibbling with her brilliant teeth — very 

 like a monkey, but an improvement on a monkey in that she 

 broke off bits to give the rest. First one and then another be- 

 haved in the same way, till presently others from afar came 

 up cautiously, thinking it looked safe. The slightest thing 



