M'Crindle
1901. John Watson M'Crindle. Ancient India: As Described in Classical Literature, Archibald Constable & Company, Westminster. On page 59, the Greek Historian and Geographer Strabo (63 BC - c. 24 AD) is quoted:
"He says also that there are monkeys, rollers of rocks, which climb precipices and roll down stones upon their pursuers, and that most of the animals that are tame with us are wild in India." Footnote: "In a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy in 1884, Dr. V. Ball, referring to this passage says: "But that it is not impossible that the story may have referred to real monkeys will be apparent from the following personal experience of my own: When at Malwa Tal, a lake near Naini Tal, in the Himalayas, I was warned that in passing under a landslip, which slopes down to the lake, I should be liable to have stones thrown at me by monkeys. Regarding this as being possibly a traveller's tale, I made a particular point of going to the spot in order to see what could have given rise to it. As I approached the base of the landslip, near the road on the north side of the lake, I saw a number of brown monkeys (Inuus rhesus) rush to the sides and across the top of the landslip, and presently pieces of loosened stone and shale came tumbling down near where I stood. I fully satisfied myself that this was not merely accidental, for I distinctly saw one monkey industriously with both forepaws and with obvious malice prepense, pushing the loose shingle off a shoulder of rock. I then tried the effect of throwing stones at them, and this made them quite angry, and the number of fragments which they set rolling was speedily doubled."
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