SACRED MONKEYS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6868, 5 March 1883, Page 3

SACRED MONKEYS.

(P. L. Oswald in. Popular Sclent* Monthly.) Victor Jaeqaemont estimates that tbs Bengal Presidency alone, contain# 1600 monkey-asylums, sapported chiefly by the very poorest class of the population. In the rural districts of Nepaul the hanum&n# hare their sacred jjrores, and keep together in troops of SO or 60 adults, and, in spite of hard times, these Associations multiply like the monastic order of medieval Europe; hat .they most all be provided for, though the natives should have to eke out their crops with the wild rice of the Jumna swamp jangles.. . The strangest part of the superstition is that this charity results by no means from a feeling of benevolencq toward animals in general, but from the exclusive veneration of a special subdivision of the monkey tribe. An orthodox Hindoo must not willingly taka the life of the humblest fellow-creature, but be would not move a Anger to save a starving dog, and has no hesitation in stimulating a beast of harden with a dagger-like goad and other contrivances that would invoke the avenging powers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Nor would he shrink from extreme measures ia defending his fields from the ravages of low-caste monkeys. Dr Allen Mackenzie once saw a swarm of excited natives running toward on orchard where the shaking of branches betrayed the pretence of arboreal marauders. Some of them carried slings, others dubs and cans-spears. But toon they came back crestfallen. "What’s the matter?” inquired the doctor; *‘ did they get away front you?" "Kata-Muni" was the laconic reply, M sacred monkeys." Holy balxfens that must net be interrupted in their little pastimes. They had expected to find a troop of common makaques, wanderoos, or other profane fourhanders, and returned on tiptoe, like Manyat’s sergeant who went to arrest an obstreperous drunkard, and recognised his commanding officer. Unarmed European* cannot afford to brave these prejudices. Capt. Klphinstone’s gardener nearly lost bis life for shooting a thievish hanuman; a mob of raging bigots chased him from street to street till he gave them the slip in a Mohammedan suburb, where a sympathising Unitarian helped him to escape through the back alleys. The-lnter-ferenoe of his countrymen would hardly have saved him, for the crowd isorelied from minute to minute, and even women joined in the chase and threatened to cure his impiety with a turnip-masher.