CHAPTER VII.
Bell-ringing by the monkeys.—Disorder in Monkey Villas.—Hungry, I discover stores.—His Majesty in a jar of quinces.—Scrambling for nuts.—Monkeys tipsy.—Fear of their intoxicated revels.—Night falls as I am in the midst of a terrible uproar.—I discover candles and lucifer matches.—The monkeys find them also.—Candle-dance by the apes.
The fourth day of this singular penitential ordeal I was startled at hearing a bell ring, and immediately fancied myself saved, for I could attribute only to one of my own species the faculty of employing this method of signalling. Flinging down my pen I abandoned my cruel labour, and ran at the top of my speed towards the place whence I supposed the sound proceeded. I decided to die rather than remain any longer in the place where I had been kept by constraint and blows for three days and nights. My guards did not dare to hold me back. I arrived without halting at the foot of the post above which the bell was hung, when my disappointment was complete at finding that it was not a man but an ape who was pulling the rope.
The post of the bell was fixed at the corner of a large courtyard, the four sides of which were composed of ranges of elegant apartments. This courtyard received both air and light through an immense awning of rose-coloured cloth, filled out by the wind, and enjoyed a perpetual freshness arising from a natural basin of water which was situated in the very centre of the square. Luxuriant turf, with beds of shrubs and flowers, formed a border to this refreshing pool. Tied together in bouquets by a kind of weed, a tropical hair-like plant, bamboos grew with their delicate trunks and glossy foliage to a height of sixty feet. In India this cool part of a house, where one really manages to breathe, is called the verandah. Did India take the idea of verandahs from the Moors, or did the Moors borrow verandahs from the Hindoos to introduce them into Spain and Portugal? I cannot say. All I know is that the inhabitants dine in these places during the heat of the day, walk in them of an evening, and often make them their sleeping apartment for the night. Divans from Cabul, carpets from Bagdad, mats from Ceylon, and Manilla hammocks are the ordinary furniture of these verandahs.
Karabouffi, who had taken possession without ceremony of the finest house of all, had the wit to choose the verandah for himself and court to reside in. Profiting by the long tables laid out for the officers of the station, he and his suite occasionally took their meals there, though to be sure without ever thinking of changing the tablecloth.
On entering this verandah I found myself in the midst of the most distressing disorder that one can possibly imagine. There were plates scattered about in all directions, silver dishes lying here and there, broken china, smashed decanters, forks stuck by the prongs into the table, bottles lying on their sides, and glasses piled up one within the other.
The bell which I had heard was to announce dinner.
Karabouffi strutted into the room and took a place in the very middle of the table, between a soup-plate and cruet-stand; his favourites seated themselves around—some on the table, others underneath.