SOME INDIAN ANIMALS
The squirrel. The tame antelope. Effect of the railway.
Monkeys in Delhi. In the jungle. Wild pigs; their
destruction. The mongoose. The buffalo; its milk; its
disposition. The Indian donkey. Hard labour. Poor fare.
Indian callousness. Elephants. Camels. The horse.
In the jungle of trees and coarse vegetation which surrounds many of
the old-fashioned bungalows in India, the shrill, nor very musical
call of the squirrel--half cry and half whistle--may frequently be
heard. They gambol about the trees, and run up the walls of the
bungalow, and chase each other along the eaves with apparent gaiety
and freedom from care. But as you watch them through the chinks of the
blinds made of slender reeds, which shade the verandah from the glare
of the sun, you see signs that all is not harmony even in their small
world.
The grey and black striped fur of the squirrel always appears
spotlessly clean, and in all their spare moments they are busy at
their toilet. The bushy tail is their chief beauty, and it is scarcely
ever at rest. Like so many other animals, they betray their varying
emotions by the way in which they frisk it about. Their manners are
beautiful, and when they have got hold of a choice morsel they take it
in their paws, and sitting on their haunches eat it with evident
enjoyment, but with a certain polish and grace of manner pretty to
see. Young squirrels are easily tamed, and soon get reconciled to
making their home in the jacket pocket of a schoolboy.
When I was staying in the bungalow of a country mission, an
exquisitely graceful antelope stepped into the verandah, and entering
the room where we were breakfasting, went up to my host and asked for
food. He had tamed it when young, but it was now living a semi-wild
life, and was often absent in the jungle for days together. In some
parts of India various kinds of deer may be seen from the windows of
the train. The making of a line of railway naturally has the tendency
to drive the wild creatures of the district deeper into the jungle,
but after a while they to some extent get accustomed to the passing of
the train, and delightful glimpses of animal life can sometimes be got
when travelling. Monkeys, for instance, have insatiable curiosity, and
when they have got over their first alarm the quaint sight may
sometimes be seen of a row of monkeys seated on the top of the
boundary wall to watch the train go by.
Monkeys have become lawless citizens of Delhi, and will no doubt
greatly welcome the enlarged scope for mischief which the new city
will open out to them. They travel in troops over the flat roofs, and
are very bold and mischievous, and great thieves. But monkeys must be
studied in their wild freedom in the woods to appreciate them. When
seen leaping from tree to tree with refreshing elasticity, or from
rock to rock in the open country, their spirit of fun and mischief
having full scope, the sight is a delightful one. They stick very
closely to their own districts, although now and then a solitary
monkey will detach himself from the rest and search for pastures new.
Wild pigs are common in some parts, looking like the poor relations of
their tame brethren. They do great harm amongst crops, and no weapon
is of much avail against them except the gun. The Christian who shot
the panther mentioned in the last chapter was largely employed by the
Hindu farmers round about to shoot any wild pig that came into their
fields. It was for him a profitable job, because, besides his fee, he
got the carcase of the pig, for which he could always get Rs. 10 from
a Parsee, who regarded the flesh as a great luxury. Wild pigs are also
chased in the so-called "sport" of pig-sticking, which is popular
amongst some English residents.
Now and then the mongoose, useful as a destroyer of snakes and rats,
may be caught sight of, with his long coarse fur, running across the
road, or hunting along a fence, much in the same way as a weasel
shows himself in England, although the mongoose is a good deal larger.
Sometimes they will even venture into a bungalow to prospect, and
young ones are easily tamed and become domestic pets.
Every morning a lumbering buffalo shambles into the compound to be
milked on the premises, in order to ensure getting the unadulterated
article. Even then it is expedient to look into the bottom of the
vessel to see that no water has been put there before the milking
begins. Buffalo's milk is not very rich, and the cream, such as it is,
produces a white and tasteless butter, which has generally to be
doctored and coloured before an Englishman will look at it.
The buffalo for the greater part of the year has not much flesh on his
huge skeleton, and is a sorrowful-looking creature with an
expressionless eye and an inky skin, and often with enormous horns
which give him a formidable appearance. But except when buffaloes
fight amongst themselves they are not savage beasts, although their
temper is uncertain, and they are said to be liable to attack an
Englishman in districts where they are not accustomed to the sight.
Generally buffaloes appear to take no interest whatever in life,
except to regard it as a burden too heavy to bear. A whole herd is
sent out to graze under the care of a small boy; they are in
astonishing subjection to his despotic rule.
The Indian donkey is very small, and its foal is a beautiful little
creature; but its life-long sentence of hard labour begins early. It
spends its days carrying great weights of earth, or brick, or stone,
or gravel, in panniers made of coarse sacking, for buildings,
road-making, and the like. They work in droves of a dozen, or twenty,
or more, according to the prosperity of the contractor. When they have
delivered their burden, the men and boys who are in charge each mount
a donkey, the legs of the men almost touching the ground, and the
cavalcade goes for a fresh load, often at full gallop.
It is an understood thing that an Indian donkey finds its own food,
how and where he can, in odd moments during the day, or at night when
he is turned adrift to wander as far as his hobbled legs can take him.
The brief period of plenty, when grass springs up after the rains, is
so brief that it must only make the rest of the year appear the more
blank by way of contrast. Indians are credited with being humane,
because they are unwilling to take life, but there are probably few
people who are so callous concerning the sufferings of the animal
world. The owners of the donkeys have a cruel custom of slitting their
nostrils, because it is supposed to moderate the loudness of their
bray.
[Illustration: MILKING THE BUFFALO.]
Elephants are used much less as beasts of burden than was the case in
days gone by. Some are employed in military service and in the pursuit
of big game, but their chief function is to make an imposing
appearance on grand occasions in some of the native states. But the
fact that elephants were not used in the royal processions at the last
Delhi Durbar, will probably lead to their being gradually less used
even for ceremonial purposes. Camels are employed for all sorts of
work in Northern India, and add greatly to the picturesqueness of the
road and street traffic. The horse plays a subordinate part,
comparatively speaking, in the labours of India, except for hack duty.
And though wealthy people, both English and Indian, drive handsome
horses, the motor-car is rapidly taking their place in the service of
the rich, or the prosperous professional, of all nations.