joints of the bamboo: considered cooling, toxic, aphrodisiac and
pectoral, but as a medicinal agent it is inert (_ibid_. i. 384, Yule,
_Hobson-Jobson_[2], 887).

[40] A bullock carriage, Hindustani _chhakra_ (Yule,
_Hobson-Jobson_[2], 407 f.).

LETTER XXII

Monkeys.--Hindoo opinions of their Nature.--Instances of their
sagacity.--Rooted animosity of the Monkey tribe to the
snake.--Cruelty to each other when maimed.--The female remarkable for
affection to its young.--Anecdotes descriptive of the belief of the
Natives in the Monkey being endowed with reason.--The Monkeys and the
Alligator.--The Traveller and the Monkeys.--The Hindoo and the
Monkey.

The Natives of India, more particularly the Hindoos, are accustomed to pay
particular attention to the habits of the varied monkey race, conceiving
them to be connecting links in the order of Nature between brutes and
rational creatures; or, as some imagine and assert, (without any other
foundation than conjecture and fancy), that they were originally a race of
human beings, who for their wicked deeds have been doomed to perpetuate
their disgrace and punishment to the end of time in the form and manner we
see them, inhabiting forests, and separated from their superior man.

I have had very few opportunities of acquainting myself with the general
principles of the Hindoo belief, but I am told, there are amongst them
those who assert that one of their deities was transformed to a particular
kind of monkey, since designated Hummoomaun,[1] after the object of their
adoration; whence arises the marked veneration paid by Hindoos of certain
sects to this class of monkeys.

The Natives firmly believe the whole monkey race to be gifted with reason
to a certain extent, never accounting for the sagacity and cunning they
are known to possess by instinctive habits; arguing from their own
observations, that the monkeys are peaceable neighbours, or inveterate
enemies to man, in proportion as their good will is cultivated by kindness
and hospitality, or their propensity to revenge roused by an opposite line
of conduct towards them.

The husbandman, whose land is in the vicinity of a forest, and the abode
of monkeys, secures safety to his crops, by planting a patch of ground
with that species of grain which these animals are known to prefer. Here
they assemble, as appetite calls, and feast themselves upon their own
allotment; and, as if they appreciat