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"'On the contrary, I answered, 'he went there to teach them, and the little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana, wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys.
Yet, I've come to the conclusion that the man who devotes himself to public service loses much of his usefulness if he allows himself to grow pessimistic about human nature. If there were not more good than bad in the world, we'd still be monkeys! I have ceased to search for some great single ideal for which I can fight.
One of the common kinds of monkeys that accompany street organ-players has a prehensile tail, but not of the most perfect kind; since in this species the tail is entirely clad with hair to the tip, and seems to be used chiefly to steady the animal when sitting on a branch by being twisted round another branch near it.
There were shops selling quaint articles, smoky shanties where sailors were cooking their own queer messes, dealers in pipes, monkeys, parrots, ropes, sailcloth, fanciful curios, amongst which were mingled higgledy-piggledy old culverins, huge gilded lanterns, worn-out pulley-blocks, rusty flukeless anchors, chafed cordage, battered speaking-trumpets, and marine glasses almost contemporary with the Ark.
Then, when the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to go back to the seashore. And all the monkeys went with him as far as the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him off. BY the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell. This took a long time, because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to shake John Dolittle by the hand.
Could I have the heart to turn my back upon the gate of the world of wonders which was just opening to me? "'Yes, said I to myself; 'I have the heart to do anything that will prevent my losing the love of Mary Armat. "Then an evil thought came to me, and tempted me: 'If you choose you can hear the monkeys talk and have Mary too. Everything you want is in your own hands.
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 the life amid the sylvan scenes about them.
And then again I stop, treading water softly, with face alone between river and sky; for the monkeys have ceased, and very faint and low, but blended in wonderful minor harmony, comes another chorus from three miles down the river: the convicts singing hymns in their cells at midnight.
More than once an ardent hunter has seen such examples of tender solicitude among monkeys for the wounded and of grief for the dead as to resolve never to fire at one of the race again. James Forbes, in his "Oriental Memoirs," relates a striking instance of this kind. One of a shooting party had killed a female monkey in a banian tree, and carried it to his tent.
To ride through the narrow streets of the sacred town on an elephant, and find oneself on a level either with the upper stories of the houses which are frequently decorated with elaborately carved oriel windows, or with the roofs on which holy monkeys in great numbers are disporting themselves, is a very curious spectacle.
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