BRINDABUND MONKEYS.
The weather is now most fearfully oppressive; not so much from the actual heat, for the thermometer is seldom above 86° or 87°, but from a dense mass of cloud, which at the height of a few hundred feet encloses us, as it were, day and night in one vast steamy vapour-bath. The last two or three months are actually the most trying that I have felt in India.
I forget whether I have described the Brindabund monkeys. I have now a pair of them. I do not remember ever to have seen them in England. They are covered all over with long, thick, black hair; but round the face, extending from temple to temple, is a very broad, thick frill of white or rather light grey: the tail is of a middling length, the snout very short, and the animal himself remarkably docile and intelligent. Those that I have are not yet a year old, and I should say the body is about a foot in length. When on their hind legs they stand nearly two feet.
I have mine in the verandah just outside my study door, and they are so full of fun that I often sit for a long time watching them. One runs a little way up the lattice, then the other makes a spring after him, and up they both go as fast as they can. Presently the lower one catches hold of the upper one's tail, and brings him down to the bottom; then he makes a jump and gets away into his kennel and sits at the door, whilst the other wanders round and round, trying to find some place where he can get in without being observed; in doing this he carelessly turns his back, when out jumps the other and catches hold of his tail or his hind leg, and drags him round and round their cage. I should tell you that the cage is the end of the verandah at the back of my house; two sides of it are wall, and the other two are lattice. It is about ten feet square, twelve feet high at one end, and eighteen or twenty at the other.
When they are frightened they sit upright on the floor, with their arms clasped round each other; and if I take one of them out tied by a string, they both scream the whole time until they are brought together again, and then they rush into each other's arms. These two monkeys are very much admired by the Europeans at Cuttack, who have given them the name of "the gentlemen monkeys," because, from the great length of their hair, they look as if they were dressed, besides being quiet and docile. They are almost as rare here as in England. They are of the most sacred race of monkeys in the eyes of the Hindus; and indeed the only objection I have to them is, that I am afraid some of my servants make poojah to them, that is, worship them, and prostrate themselves before them, and make offerings of rice to them.
We have a great improvement in the use of our finger-glasses over those in England. One man waits behind every person at each meal, even at tea, and as soon as the meal is over he brings his master or mistress a finger-glass filled with water, with two or three leaves of verbenum, or bay, or sweet-smelling lime, for the persons to squeeze between their fingers. In a hot climate like India this is very pleasant and refreshing.
INDIAN MARRIAGES.
When a man in India, I mean a European gentleman, wants a wife, he says to his friend, "I should like to get married." "Well," says he, "why don't you?" and forthwith he applies for leave of absence for a month. A month consists of thirty days, of which, say five are occupied in his journey to Calcutta, and another five on his journey back, leaving him just twenty days in which to make his selection, get introduced, make himself agreeable, propose, court, and be married. A nice prospect he has for future happiness. But there is one curious result in this sort of marriage, and a result, too, which spreads among other people also. After a few years the wife loses her health and is ordered to England. The husband cannot afford to go with her, but he allows her about half his salary. At the end of two or three years, or whatever time may have been fixed, he writes to his wife to make arrangements for her return to India; and I have known two instances in which the husband was obliged to stop the allowance in order to compel the wife to return.
I have often wished to have some peacocks in my compound, but every one told me that they would fly away; however, I found that those who had tried to keep them had obtained the young birds from the jungle. I thought I would try another plan, and therefore I got some eggs and set them under a hen. I have three young ones coming on nicely, perfectly tame, and which, I think, will look very well among the trees in front of my house. Two are peacocks, the other a peahen.