Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1888-08-22
FRANKS or MONKEYS.

FRANKS or MONKEYS.
Comical Sights Observed by bicycle
Traveller In India.
wheeled some fourteen hundred
miles along the monkey infested high
ways and saw some very curious sights.
Sometimes the monkeys Would file in
long strings across the road, close be-
hind one another, each one looking
anxiously behind, evidently very much
disturbed at the strange appearance Of
the bicycle. Shining up the tall teddy
palms or cocoanut trees, one after an
other, they would hastily ensconce
themselves among the thick foliage,
and peer curiously down at me as /
wheeled past, giving vent to their per-
turbation in excited cries.. One day I
remember whiting away an hour or so
beneath q grove of sacred peepul trees,
watching the amusing antics of troop
Of monkeys in the branches overhead.
Their marvellous activity was here
displayed to perfection, as they quar-
relied and chased one another from tree
to tree. The old ones seemed passive
ly irritable, and decidedly averse to
being bothered by the antics and mis-
chievous activity of the youngsters.
Taking possession of some particular
branch, they warned away all would
be intruders with threatening grimaces
and feints. The youthful members OF
the party were full of FRANKS, carried
on to the great annoyance of their
more aged and sedate relatives. These,
in revenge, put in no small portion of
their time Furnishing or pursuing them
with angry cries for their deeds of
wanton annoyance. --~.~-
One monkey, that had very evident
ly been there many and many a time
before on the same thieving errand,
with an amusing secresy and roguish-
ness, slipped quickly along a horizon
tai bough, and thrust his arm into a
hole. His eyes wandered guiltily
around, as though expectant OF detec-
ton and punishment. This apprehen-
sion quickly justified itself in the shape
of a blue-plumaged bird that huttered
angrily about the robbers head and
caused him to beat hasty retreat.
Birds eggs were the booty he expected
to find, and methought, as I noted
the number, mischievousness and
activity of the freebooters to
whom birds eggs would be most
toothsome morsels, watchful indeed
must be the parent bird whose maternal
ambition bore its legitimate fruit in
this monkey-infested grove. In me
these monkeys seemed to recognize
possible dangerous enemy, and at my
first appearance they fastened to hide
among the thickest foliage. Peering
cautiously down, they yielded them
selves up to excited chattering and
broad grimaces. After awhile they
became somewhat treasured, and re-
garded me with les3 apprehension.
The wild monkeys and the natives seem
to get along famously together. one
often seeing them occupying the shade
OF the same tree.
In the valley of the Hooghly, down
toward Calcutta, my road sometimes
partook almost of the character of a
tunnel, burrowing through a mass of
dense tropical vegetation. Cocoanut
and teddy palms mingled their feathery
foliage with the dark green of the
mango, the wild pomoln, giant
bamboo, and other indigenous vegeta-
ton characteristic of hot and humid
climate, and big creepers swung from
tree to tree and wound the mass in
extricable confusion.
In this magnificent conservatory of
nature big, black-faced monkeys, with
tails four feet long, romp and. revel
through the trees, nimbly climb the
creepers, and thoroughly enjoy their
life amid the sylvan scenes about them,
1t was curious sight to see those big
anthropoids, almost as large as human
beings, swing themselves deity up the
festooned creepers at my approach
to see their queer, impish black faces
peering cautiously out of their hiding
place, and to hear their peculiar
squeak of surprise and alarm as they
noted the strange character of my con-
veyance, the bicycle. Sometimes a
gang of them would lope awkwardly
along ahead of the bicycle, looking
every inch like veritable imps of dark
ness, pursuing their silent course
through the chastened twilight of
green-grown subterranean passage
ways, their ridiculously long tails
raised aloft, and their faces most of the