Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-07-25
A SHOWER OF MONKEYS.
THEY POUR OUT OF THE TREES
OF AN INDIAN FOREST.

Adventures of O Traveller That Would
Boots Surrounded by an Army of
Threatening Simians.
In India, the paradise of monkeys, they
are held in high honor because of the
aid which their king, Hanooman 'in the
days of DID, gave to the God Rama, when.
to rescue his wife, Sta, he invaded Ceylon,
Hanooman helpingt to bridge the strait.
Duty had taken me to Dharmsala, hill
station considerably west of Simla. On
the return journeyI turned off the main
road at Kangra, an ancient fortress, named
by Runjeet Singh "the key of the Punjab,"
though utterly incapable of standing
weeks siege from civilized army.
The main road passes through dense
wood not 100 yards from this house, which
was more than half mile away from the
nearest part of town. From the road a
narrow avenue had been cut among the
trees to a small clearance around the house,
otherwise, it was buried in the wood.
Sauntering under these trees suddenly
become conscious of noises in the branches
above me. looked up and about but
though the branches stirred and the leaves
moved, 1 could see nothing. I was not,
however, long left in doubt or speculation
A monkey, large male, dropped from a
branch to the ground at distance of about
thirty feet in front of me. AS he reached
the ground he squatted on his heels, rest
ing his hands on his knees and gazing fix
edly and solemnly at me. His gravity up
set mine. Then near him another monkey
dropped down; third and a fourth fol-
lowed. 1t began to rain monkeys. In tens,
in scores, in hundreds; old, middle aged
and young; large and small; males and fc-
males--many of the latter carrying babies,
some on their backs, others in their arms
kept dropping from the trees around me.
was standing under mighty giant of
the forest; and against its trunk, some five
feet in diameter, I set my back, as the
monkeys in their hundreds squatted down
in an irregular semicircle around.
SURROUNDED BY HUNDREDS.
At some distance beyond, several young
monkey urchins, which preferred play to
curiosity, kept suspending themselves from
the branches in long living chains, holding
on to each others hands or tails, and swing
ing themselves pendulum wise to and fro.
They were not the small puny creatures
generally seen in European menageries,
but the real genuine Indian Hanooman, of
which race the large and strong males
stand, when erect, fully four feet in height.
They were many such, among others OF
smaller size, in the crowd around me.
It had not taken three minutes to form
that semicircle Of monkeys. They had
come down as thick as a shower of hail
stones; but SO softly and gently had they
descended to the grass and leaf covered
ground that scarcely any noise had been
made. For a short time they sat motion
less and silent, staring hard at me; and a
baby monkey, having made noise, was in
stantly smacked by it's mother in most
human fashion. They looked at me, then
at each other, and again at me; and then
they began to chatter-frst one, then few
together, then many at once, finally all in
chorus They talked, chartered, jabbered,
discussed, argued, shouted and yelled; ges-
ticulating meanwhile, making faces anf!
grinning.
The laughter with which I had greeted
the first of my visitors died a very sudden
death, for my curiosity to watch their be-
havior did not prevent my realizing the
fact that was not in very safe position.
Here was, unarmed, nothing but light
riding whip in my hand, surrounded by
hundreds of monkeys, to which my white
oh;oo+c ~ os r,rcb .1or,;o,, &c o,,r;oa;t,.
Nat;yas tbav Ala not ,,,i,,d b,,t E-,rn..,s $500
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to intruders
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be listening attentively. l listened, too
the sIiilhess oI ueaCn was al around, iol
even JIG young uonheys Hdu CedSeu GHclI