A wistful, watchful melancholy seems to be the normal mood of the mature monkey, broken by sudden flashes of interest which change as suddenly into indifference or abstraction. Few animals seem to spend so much time in sitting and looking about them, while only the birds can command more lofty posts of observation. Among men, some sailors and many Orientals have a similar faculty of tranquil outlooking. But the sudden flash of interest in a triviality and its abrupt cessation remind one more of lunacy than of sane humanity. Their life is hard and hungry, and as the creatures lope disconsolately along in the rain, or crouch on branches with dripping backs set against the tree trunk as a shelter from the driving storm, they have the air of being very sorry for themselves. Consumption is not unknown among them, and a monkey's cough, heard through the drip of the forest on a wet night, is a dismal sound. But when the sun shines the younger ones play like schoolboys. They have a game like the English boys' cock of the dung-hill or king of the castle, but instead of pushing each other from the top of a knoll or dust-heap, the castle is a pendent branch of a tree. The game is to keep a place on the bough, which swings with their weight as with a cluster of fruit while the players struggle to dislodge one another, each, as he drops, running round and climbing up again to begin anew. This sport is kept up for an hour at a time with keen enjoyment, and when one is nimble as a monkey it must be splendid fun.
YOUNG MONKEYS AT PLAY
The way of a ship on the sea may be strange, but the path of a monkey through tree-land is no less surprising. At one moment a creature is in tranquil meditation on the creation of the world or the origin of evil, at the next it has thrown itself backward apparently into illimitable space, but at the right instant a bough is seized and the animal swings to another and another with infallible certainty. The larger langūr does not seem to play concerted games, and his movements have a bolder sweep and abandonment. He travels on a more lofty story of the tree-terraces, progressing through the pines in a succession of leaping feats, performed with the ease, deliberation, and precision of perfect gymnastic art. The scenery which nature has assigned to this performance gives an impression of freedom which makes the thought of confinement infamous.
On the plains life would appear to be easier, for there is an almost constant succession of fruits and edible leaves in the jungles, and the crops are more accessible. Thievish monkeys sometimes haunt the halting-places of travellers. A friend of mine halted at a parao or stage where was a grove of mango-trees affording grateful shade to travellers, and while resting, he watched a little comedy. Apart from the others, a Hindu was preparing his evening meal. In one pot over the fire a stew of pulse was boiling, while he kneaded dough and baked the invariable wheaten flap-jacks. As each cake is taken from the iron griddle plate it is stuck edgewise in the hot embers till all are ready, when they are piled together. This was done, and the Hindu turned to set the ghi pot and drinking vessels in order and to hail his companion to come to dinner. While his back was turned, a big monkey dropped from the boughs overhead, seized the pile of cakes, and was off in a flash. Now the baking of bread is a semi-ritualistic business, involving a good deal of labour, and it was a very angry Hindu who received in his face one of the hot flap-jacks dropped by the monkey clutching his prize with awkward fingers above. Then the other man came and swore too, but the monkey swore the worst, irritated by the heat of his plunder, which, however, he was determined not to let go. The watchman of the stage assured my friend that this trick was a frequent occurrence, for that particular monkey was "as cunning as a baniya (or tradesman) and as daring as a thug (highway robber)—a very demon of a monkey." Yet it had never occurred to him or to the robbed travellers to take measures against it.
It may be that "advanced India" will in time give up the protection of the monkey, but there are hitherto no signs of a change in popular feeling. In April 1886, in the highly civilised and cosmopolitan city of Bombay, a Hindu of good position was in danger of losing every social privilege of his caste and of undergoing an ostracism more complete than any imagined by Athenian citizen or Irish Land-leaguer, because he was said to have allowed a European officer of police to shoot a troublesome monkey from the window of his house. The officer had been invited by the people to rid them of the creature, and its death was frankly acknowledged as a relief, but the letter of the law forbade the murder. Officers of government are careful not to wound the feelings of the people with reference both to monkeys and peacocks, a delicacy which does not always restrain the hungry low-caste man.
A collector and magistrate of a district in Hindustan proper had been out shooting, and was returning to camp. On a tree on the other side of the Ganges Canal, along which he was walking, sat a monkey. The animal seemed almost out of range, and my friend idly pointed his gun and fired in its direction with intent to startle it, but, to his dismay, the monkey fell and lay dead. Fortunately no one was near, and at night this worshipful magistrate, whose word was law for leagues round, stole out alone with a lantern, taking a long round to the nearest bridge, to look for his victim. It was not easily found, and never, even on the judicial bench, did he so keenly realise the feelings of a murderer trying to hide the evidences of his guilt. He succeeded in disposing of the body, and returned to camp determined never to point a gun at a monkey again. Another friend of mine had for neighbour a Hindu devotee of great repute and sanctity, whose hut, besides being a resort of gamblers and bad characters, had a large retinue of monkeys that were fed by visitors. The animals wrought great havoc in my friend's garden, whereupon in his irritation he threatened to shoot them. The Sâdhu took the will for the deed, and fulminated a curse against the Englishman as terrible as that which the Archbishop of Rheims inflicted on the jackdaw. He was filled with a holy joy when my friend fell ill, and desponded when he recovered.
St. Francis de Sales wrote:—"I am despised and I grow angry;—so does the peacock or the monkey." This is more like an Oriental than a Western word. The irritable monkey is ready to be angry at anything. The Oriental, however, considers the monkey—apart from his sacred affinity with Hanumān, a type, not so much of petulance, as of untrustworthiness. "What is a monkey's friendship worth?" he asks, and he says in scorn of a trivial and foolish person—"a tailless monkey." "A cocoa-nut in a monkey's hand," stands for ill-bestowed gifts or gear and for ineptitude, for the creature cannot get at the kernel, having neither strength nor wit to break the shell. "A flower in a monkey's hand" is a common Malay expression to a similar purpose. "One monkey does not tell another monkey that his buttocks are red" is a homely word with obvious uses. There are ten things, says a proverb, which may not be depended upon—"A courtesan, a monkey, fire, water, a procuress, an army, a distiller, a tailor, a parrot, and a goldsmith." The selection is significant, and—in India—just. In the stables of the wealthy a monkey is often kept to attract to itself stray influences of the evil eye, that ever-present bogy of the East. So there is a saying,—"What goes wrong in the stable falls on the monkey's head." This can be used in daily life by those frequent persons who habitually fancy themselves wrongly accused. It is unlucky to utter the word monkey in the morning, but lucky to see one before breakfast. "Speak of a monkey or an owl in the morning and you'll get no breakfast."
In the Rāmāyana of Tūlsi Dass, (a relatively modern version of the great epic poem in which the Hindus delight) a method of catching monkeys by means of a bait of grain in a narrow-mouthed jar is spoken of as an example of the metaphysical principle of illusion which makes so great a figure in Hindu cobweb philosophy. The monkey is supposed to fill his fist so full that he is unable to withdraw it, and has not the wit to let go his spoil and release himself. This is quite reasonable enough for a metaphysical illustration. A more practical form of illusion is to put some grain in a clear glass bottle and hand it to a monkey. It tries to seize the grain, then, concluding the distance was not properly judged, it takes a careful sight along the bottle, and, with a diverting air of great astuteness, passes a slow hand down and gives a sudden clutch. After one or two attempts it loses temper and interest. Similarly, the illusion of a mirror puzzles a young dog when he is first introduced to it, and, according to his character and temper, interests and excites him, but after a short time he gives it up and waits for more facts, like the philosopher he is. A foolish cock-sparrow, on the other hand, will nearly kill himself in fighting his reflection.