Thanks to the achievements of Rama's ally, monkeys are sacred in
India. The Government, emulating the earlier wisdom of the East
India Company, forbids everyone to molest them, not only when met
with in the forests, which in all justice belong to them, but even
when they invade the city gardens. Leaping from one branch to
another, chattering like magpies, and making the most formidable
grimaces, they followed us all the way, like so many midnight spooks.
Sometimes they hung on the trees in full moonlight, like forest
nymphs of Russian mythology; sometimes they preceded us, awaiting
our arrival at the turns of the road as if showing us the way.
They never left us. One monkey babe alighted on my knees. In a
moment the authoress of his being, jumping without any ceremony
over the coolies' shoulders, came to his rescue, picked him up,
and, after making the most ungodly grimace at me, ran away with him.
"Bandras (monkeys) bring luck with their presence," remarked one
of the Hindus, as if to console me for the loss of my crumpled topee.
"Besides," he added, "seeing them here we may be sure that there
is not a single tiger for ten miles round."
Higher and higher we ascended by the steep winding path, and the
forest grew perceptibly thicker, darker, and more impenetrable.
Some of the thickets were as dark as graves. Passing under hundred-
year-old banyans it was impossible to distinguish one's own finger
at the distance of two inches.
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