"Shall we visit the Pingra Pol to-day?" said my Parsi friend, who was hospitably showing me the sights of Bombay.
"Oh, certainly!" I replied, with alacrity, though I had very vague notions as to what a Pingra Pol might be, and cherished a hazy idea that he was some sort of dignitary of the Hindoo Church, an archbishop or the like.
"You know what the Pingra Pol is?" queried my friend, as we seated ourselves on the cushions of his neat little gharry behind a team of spotless white bullocks not much larger than calves. Our driver, clad in flowing white garments and an enormous white turban, was seated in front of us astride the tongue, and seemed to guide his animals by patting them on the flanks. The willing little beasts started off on a brisk trot in the direction of the native city, and my friend repeated his question.
"So you do not know what the Pingra Pol is?" he said, smiling.
"I have not the slightest idea," I replied.
"It is our hospital for worn-out and disabled animals, and it is one of the oldest and most extensive charities in the world. In your country, if an animal breaks its leg or otherwise injures itself, you kill it to 'put it out of its misery'; we hold that life is sweet to even the humblest of God's creatures, and that we have no right to take away that which we cannot give again. So, instead of killing our disabled animals, we care for them until they die a natural death. This is a part of the religion of all Hindoos, but some sects are much more strict in their observance than others. The Jains, for example, will turn out of their way on the street to avoid stepping on a bug or a worm, and after going to the temple they wear a cloth across their mouths until sunset, that they may not breathe in any living creature."
While he was talking we had been trotting rapidly through the narrow streets of the native city, past gorgeous Buddhist temples, the gay residences of the wealthy Hindoos, and the tiny shops and squalid huts of the poorer people. At last we came to a high wall of dried clay which surrounded an enclosure of about ten acres. On one side was a great gateway, devoid of ornamentation, but forming a resting-place for scores of monkeys. Little monkeys and big monkeys; busy, nervous mother monkeys, at their wits' ends to keep their lively youngsters out of trouble; and gray, dignified grandfather monkeys, who looked down upon us as if they were proprietors and managers of the whole busy scene. Myriads of little green parrots screeched and swung in the trees which overhung the wall, and blue pigeons plumed themselves in the sunshine. Through the gateway came the lowing of cattle, the yelping of dogs, the quacking of ducks, and a strange medley of noises that sounded like a barn-yard gone mad.
We alighted, and passing through the gateway, where we were provided with a guide and a quantity of "gram"—a peculiar native grain which tastes something like pea-nuts—we proceeded to make the rounds of this strange hospital. A dozen or more camels with broken legs, ragged and disreputable looking, glowered at us with evil eyes.
The natives say that a camel's greatest delight consists in biting a man; they can kick, too, in a way that would make an American army mule blush with envy; but they enjoy biting better; they can then witness the pain of their victim, while if they only kick him they have to go over to an adjoining county to view the remains, and a camel hates to exert himself. From all I have been told, I judge that a camel is a very even-tempered animal—always ugly.
