THE INDIAN MONKEYS. 2^ 



instant stuffed his pouches full of the delicious morsels. He 

 had, however, overlooked some hornets, which were regaling 

 themselves at the same time. They resented his disturbance, 

 and the tormented monkey, in his hurry to escape, came upon 

 a thom-covered roof, where he lay stung, torn, and bleeding. 

 He spurted the stolen bonbons from his pouches and barked 

 hoarsely looking 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 the 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 Monkey The writer, from whom Mrs. Bowdich quoted 



Outdone, the above story, gives a graphic account of the 

 success of a stratagem he employed to rid himself of the 

 unwelcome visits of his monkey friends. "Although," says 

 he, "a good deal shyer of me than they were of the natives, 

 I found no difficulty in getting within a few yards of them; 

 and when I lay still among the brushwood they gambolled 

 round me with as much freedom as if I had been one of 

 themselves. This happy understanding, however, did not 

 last long, and we soon began to urge war upon each other. 

 The casus belli was a field of sugar-cane which I had 

 planted on the newly cleared jungle. 



"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 accord- 

 ingly; and a deep trench dug outside, that even the wild 

 elephant did not deem it prudent to cross. The wild hogs 



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