The Jungle Book, part 4 · page 21 2101We of the jungle have no dealings with them.102We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die.103Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Bandar-log till today?”104“No,” said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now Baloo had finished.105“The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and out of their minds.106They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People.107But we do not notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads.”108He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches; and they could hear coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches.109“The Monkey-People are forbidden,” said Baloo, “forbidden to the Jungle-People.110Remember.”111“Forbidden,” said Bagheera, “but I still think Baloo should have warned thee against them.”112“I--I?113How was I to guess he would play with such dirt.114The Monkey People!115Faugh!”116A fresh shower came down on their heads and the two trotted away, taking Mowgli with them.117What Baloo had said about the monkeys was perfectly true.118They belonged to the tree-tops, and as beasts very seldom look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle-People to cross each other’s path.119But whenever they found a sick wolf, or a wounded tiger, or bear, the monkeys would torment him, and would throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being noticed.120Then they would howl and shriek senseless songs, and invite the Jungle-People to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start furious battles over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead monkeys where the Jungle-People could see them.121They were always just going to have a leader, and laws and customs of their own, but they never did, because their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they compromised things by making up a saying, “What the Bandar-log think now the jungle will think later,” and that comforted them a great deal.122None of the beasts could reach them, but on the other hand none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them, and they heard how angry Baloo was.123They never meant to do any more--the Bandar-log never mean anything at all; but one of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from the wind; so, if they caught him, they could make him teach them.124Of course Mowgli, as a woodcutter’s child, inherited all sorts of instincts, and used to make little huts of fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it.125The Monkey-People, watching in the trees, considered his play most wonderful.126This time, they said, they were really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the jungle--so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them.127Therefore they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle very quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was very much ashamed of himself, slept between the Panther and the Bear, resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People.128The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and arms--hard, strong, little hands--and then a swash of branches in his face, and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every tooth bared.129The Bandar-log howled with triumph and scuffled away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting: “He has noticed us!130Bagheera has noticed us.131All the Jungle-People admire us for our skill and our cunning.”132Then they began their flight; and the flight of the Monkey-People through tree-land is one of the things nobody can describe.133They have their regular roads and crossroads, up hills and down hills, all laid out from fifty to seventy or a hundred feet above ground, and by these they can travel even at night if necessary.134Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off with him through the treetops, twenty feet at a bound.135Had they been alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy’s weight held them back.136Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing over nothing but empty air brought his heart between his teeth.137His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up, hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree.138Sometimes he could see for miles and miles across the still green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across the sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across the face, and he and his two guards would be almost down to earth again.139So, bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of Bandar-log swept along the tree-roads with Mowgli their prisoner.1 2← previousThe Jungle Book, part 3next →The Jungle Book, part 5↑ back to The Jungle BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/4/page/2/