KIN(;S OF THE JUNtfLE. 
Steange and Little Known People Who 
Live in India. 
Only about twenty miles north of Cape 
Haniorin, the most soutliern point of In- 
dia, live a very ciirions people kiiown as 
tlie Kanikaras, or "Kings of the Jungle." 
Hidden as they are among the fastness of 
the southern Ghauts, very little is known 
of them, for they seldom venture down to 
the coast towns, and exi^lorers have neg- 
lected them. They are one of the tribes 
of savages who live in a few parts of 
India, and who are nearly as wild as 
though though they wandered in tlie jun 
gles of Africa instead of dwelling in one 
of the most populous parts of the world. 
Mr. George Cadell, while engaged in 
surveys for the Forest Department of 
^Jndia, recently had occasion to visit the 
Kings of tlie Jungle. They are an humble 
s(>j:tof Kings and are compelled to be veiy 
curefiii not to offend against tlie laws of 
caste, foi'.they are regarded as the lowest 
of the low, avid it is a part of their duty to 
keep at a very' respectful distance from 
all the other pei'ple who inliabit the little 
native province jvhere they live. 
They are not ai^'lowed, for instance, to 
approach within t;Wenty paces of any of 
the sliop-keepinoi,- or trading classes. 
When they wish tjo make a purchase they 
must deposit thePi money on a stump or 
stone, and then I'etire until the money 
lias been replaced iil">y the article they have 
bargained for. T'heir abject position 
urdKCij Iiicru-very "timid. They ran away 
into the jungle whenever they saw Mr. 
Cadell's c< ming, though he did not put on 
any airs '.ike the Brahmins, who despise 
them. He found, however, an easy way 
to win their friendship. All he had to do 
was to hang a small tin of gunpowder at 
their door post, and as soon as the natives 
saw it they were always certain that any 
one who made them so tine a present was 
their good friend. They would then in- 
vite him to the best entertainment they 
could provide and would build him a hut 
among branches of the trees; for these 
curious natives sleep on platforms built in 
the fork of trees, and over the platforms 
they rear grass roofs. They are thus out 
of the reach of wild elephants, who are 
apt to be nncomfortdbly inquisitive in 
the night time. 
The Kanikaras are great hunters, and 
their weapons are commonly bows and 
arrows, though some of them have very 
poor iiiatchloeks. All elephants are the 
property of the Maharajah of the Travaii- 
core province, where they live, and the 
Kings of the Jungle are required to help 
hunt the elephant when his Highness 
wants a little ivory. They are also re- 
quired to furnish wax for some of the 
temples, but render no other service to 
the state. They wear nothing but a nar- 
row loin cloth and a few ornaments and 
bead necklaces. ■ Leaden earrings are 
the most conspicuous articles of women's 
dress. A very cin-ious fact about them is 
that they have the decimal system of enu- 
mei-ation, though they can count only to 
ten. They have pebbles, each of which 
represents ten units, and if the articles 
they wish to count are represented, for 
instance, by three pebbles, it means that 
the articles number three tens, or thirty 
units. 
Living within a few miles of civiliza- 
tion and big towns, these primitive sav- 
ages still make a lire by revolving a stick 
of hard wood in. the hollow of a dry bam- 
boo. The bamboo, by the way, serves to 
imlicate the age of a kauikara. Any man 
who has seen a bamboo blossom three 
times is regarded as a very venerable 
person. — N. Y. Sun. 
Ueliuitions of the Day. 
Light and shade — A window. 
A ready rider — The life-boat. 
A household word — Mortgage. 
A heir-line — The birth notice. 
With might and mane — The lion. 
Out in the cold — A handkerchief. 
The first person singular — Adam. 
An utter failure — The stammerer. 
No sooner said than done — Amen. 
A niilitai-j' heir — The sun of a gun. 
The cream of the joke — Ice-cream. 
Fixed up regardless — The glass eye. 
A buj--word and a reproach — Boodle. 
Booted and spurred — The slow horse. 
A •pack" animal — The cigarette 
fiend. 
The pale of civilization — Face-powder. 
A line of business — The Ij^nchers rope. 
Returned with thanks — Grace before 
meat. 
Music by the banned — The organ- 
grinders. 
A rough estimate — Figuring in saHd- 
paper. 
A spark of genius — One who knows 
when to go home. 
Cut and diieil — Tlie man who was 
-withered by a glance." 
A beggarly account of empty boxes — 
The average sporting column. 
The Humboldt I^ibraey, 28 Lafayette 
Place, New York Cit5', favors ns with 
124 Quintessence of Socialism, by Prof. 
A. SchatHe, former Minister of Finance in 
Austria. Translated from the Eighth Ger- 
man edition by Bernard Bosanquet, M. 
A. Price 15 cents. 
125. Darwinism and Politics, by David 
G. Ritchie, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of 
Jesus College, Oxford, and Administra- 
tive Nihilism, by Thomas H. Huxley, F. 
R. S. Price 15 cents. 
12(). Double number. Physiognomy 
and Expression, by Paolo Montegazza, 
Senator; Director of the National Mu- 
seum of Anthropology, Florence; Presi- 
dent of the Italian Society of Anthropolo- 
gy. Illustrated. Parti. Price 30 cents. 
127. Double number. Same, Part II. 
Price 30 cents. 
Not iiiaiiy days since an amateur taxid- 
ermist, a young man of large mental cal- 
ibre, holding forth in the city assessor's 
olttce, decided to do some specimen hunt- 
ing. Rumagiug his brother's outfit, he 
secured a large number of shells marked 
"D" and started out. 
Now Harry is a noted crack shot; so, 
after firing at a Ruby-throat with no good 
results, and nothing to show but a wing 
and a tail feather of two other larger 
specimens, he became excited and com- 
menced to investigate those "D" shells. 
This disclosed seven buck shot in 
each one and explained the missing speci- 
mens—shot to pieces. His brother had 
recently returned from an extended 
deer hunt in the north-west, and 
the "D" meant loaded for deer, instead 
of, as he supposed, "Ducks No. 8 shot." 
Harry examines his shells now, before 
leaving home. 
The Kindeegarden for September be- 
gins the third volume of this interesting 
and valuable magazine. Though the 
price of this periodical has been reduced 
to $1.50, it has been nearly doubled in 
size, and many departments adled. 
Among them none are more interesting 
than the Primary Sunday School depjirt- 
nieiit and Our Nursery, which is esp(;- 
cially interesting to parents of young 
children. 
(ieology in Viv&inia. 
W. H. Ballon, the novelist, has made a 
discovery in Virginia which promises to 
be of great geological value. While kill- 
ing a rattlesnake in the mountains near 
White Sulphur Springs he stirred up the 
earth and came upon signs of the geolog- 
ical formation of the Silurian age. He 
sent for Prof. Cope of the University of 
Pennsylvania, who extended the exami- 
nation until he became fully convinced 
that the range of mountains in Virginia 
was formed in the earliest Paleozoic ages, 
instead of in the second or Devonian pe- 
riod, as has generally been supposed.. It 
is on this account that the tops of the Vir- 
ginia mountains contain fertile soil. 
Prof. Cope is preparing a careful scien- 
tific report on the discoveries, which will 
be printed in book form shortly. Ac- 
cording to his judgment the Virginia 
mountains are now to be ranked among 
the oldest mountains in the woiid. — Nev) 
York Pr ess. 
Good Books for the Libi'ary. 
SCIENTIFIC AND OIHEKWISE. 
Kldgway's North American Birds, $7.5u. 
Cone's Birds of North Ainurioa, $7..')0. 
Davie's Metluicls in Tiixiderniy, subscrip- 
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Davie's Egg Check List (.paper) $1.25. 
A.O.U. Check List of N. Am. Birds 5iic. 
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