the tormented bandar, in
his hurry to escape, came upon a thorn-covered roof, where he lay,
stung, torn, and bleeding. He spurted the stolen bon-bons from his
pouches, and barking hoarsely, looked 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 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 traveller came in constant contact with monkeys in his occupations
of clearing land and planting, and at first, as he lay still among the
brushwood, they gamboled round him as they would round the natives.
This peaceable state of things, however, did not last, when he
established a field of sugar-canes in the newly-cleared jungle. He tells
the story so well, that I must be allowed to use his own expressions:--
"Every beast of the field seemed leagued against this devoted patch of
sugar-cane. The wild elephants came, and browsed 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 accordingly, and a deep
trench dug outside, that even the wild elephant did not deem it prudent
to cross.
"The wild hogs came and inspected the trench and the palisades beyond. A
bristly old tusker was observed taking a survey of the defenses; but,
after mature deliberation, he gave two short grunts, the porcine
(language), I imagined, for 'No go,' and took himself off at a round
trot, to pay a visit to my neighbour Ram Chunder, and inquire how his
little plot of sweet yams was coming on. The jackals sniffed at every
crevice, and determined to wait a bit; but the monkeys laughed the whole
intrenchment to scorn. Day after day was I doomed to behold my canes
devoured, as fast as they ripened, by troops of jubilant monkeys. It was
of no use attempting to drive them away. When disturbed, they merely
retreated to the nearest tree, dragging whole stalks of sugar-cane along
with them, and then spurted the chewed fragments in my face, as I looked
up at them. This was adding insult to injury, and I positively began to
gro
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