a Kashmiri Muhammadan, when urging on him the advantages of treating animals kindly, and was answered as prosy preachers deserve to be. "Yes," said my friend, the leader of a gang of kahars or porters, "the sahib spoke the words of truth, it is wrong to ill-use creatures whom God has made. Once before it was my fortune to listen to similar talk from a sahib who also knew of the Prophet. That sahib was a model of virtue, he also would not allow mules or ponies to be beaten, and his regard for men was such, that he insisted on paying them double the usual daily rate, while to me,—such was the virtue of that sahib,—he gave a handsome present.' This little speech was beautifully delivered, but it ought to be Englished in the Irish tongue to give it due effect.

A sneering saying is, "In a learned house even the cat is learned." A sly man is said to look like a drowned cat; a live cat is said to be better than a dead tiger, as a living dog is better than a dead lion; a stealthy tread is, of course, catlike; and it is easy to imagine occasions when one might say of a human creature, "The cowed cat allows even a mouse to bite its ears." In nature a cowed cat is as rare as a silent woman, but a proverb has not necessarily much concern with nature. We say, "Even a worm will turn." In India the cat is considered so gentle, they say, "Even a cat, hard pressed, will make a fight for it." To an idle girl a mother will say, "Did the cat sneeze, or what?" (that you drop your work). To her child, too, the

mother will point the cat cleaning her face and fur as an example of cleanliness, saying the cat is a Brahmani, nice and clean.

In Kashmir they say, "If cats had wings, there would be no ducks on the lake." Cats are credited with an occult sympathy with the moon, on account of their contracting eyes and nocturnal habits. You may hear cats spoken of with mistrust for this peculiarity, for natives dislike being abroad at night. They take lanterns, go in companies, and sing to keep their courage up; but they hate and fear the dark, thickly peopled with ghosts, demons, and imaginary evil folk of flesh and blood. So we need not see in the ascription of the cat to the moon an echo of its ancient Egyptian dedication. A cat's moon is a Kashmiri expression for a sleepless night. Old-fashioned English rustics talk of a man "as lazy as Ludlam's dog that leaned his head against the wall to bark." In Kashmir, says the Rev. J. H. Knowles, they speak of Khokhai Mir's idle cat that scratched the ground on seeing a mouse, as who should say, "You may catch it, master, if you like." The sensitiveness of the cat's eye is noticed, but they do not pretend, like the Chinese, to tell the time by looking at its pupil.

Among a vast number of omens the cat takes a place. A cat crossing the path of a native going out on business would turn him back at once, for it

is most unlucky. Orientals are terribly superstitious. Yes, but here is a verse by an English

poet, writing from first-hand knowledge of hardheaded Whitby fisher folk,

"I'm no way superstitious as the parson called our Mat,

When he'd none sail with the herring fleet, 'cause he met old Susie's cat.

There's none can say I heeded, though a hare has crossed my road,

Nor burnt the nets as venomed, where a woman's foot had trode."

1 On the Seaboard and other Poems, by Susan K. Phillips.

Y

CHAPTER XIII

OF ANIMAL CALLS

The beasts are very wise,

Their mouths are clean of lies:

They talk one to the other,

Bullock to bullock's brother

Resting after their labours,

Each in stall with his neighbours.
But man with goad and whip,
Breaks up their fellowship,
Shouts in their silky ears
Filling their souls with fears.
When he has tilled the land
He says, They understand.'
But the beasts in stall together,
Freed from yoke and tether,
Say, as the torn flanks smoke,

Nay, 'twas the whip that spoke.""-R. K.

IN English we say "Puss puss" to a cat.

"Pooch

pooch is sometimes used in India, but "koor koor" is a more frequent word to dogs, cats, and domestic pets. "Toi-Toi" is a call of the same kind. "Titi" is a Kashmir call to fowls and ducks. "Ahjao!" the first syllable long drawn out, is the usual cry to fowls for feeding, and faqirs living in woodland places thus call peacocks and monkeys to a dole of grain. Though not a tail is visible at first, plaintive

The sacred

cries like those of lost kittens come faintly from aloft and afar in response, gradually growing louder. Then, one by one, slinging onward and downward, the creatures arrive with their leader. "Ah ah ah!" is also a common fowl and pigeon call. crocodiles in the Rajputana lakes are invited to dinner by the Brahmans with "Ao bhai!"-Come, brother! Elephants have quite a small dictionary of their own. There are separate words for-go quickly, sit, kneel with front legs, with hind legs, with all four, lie down and sleep, go slowly, lift a foot, rise, move backwards, stand still, break off branches, put me up with your trunk, make a salaam, and possibly more. All these are understood. A good mahout, too, is always talking to his beast, like the ploughman and ox-cart driver. When riding on an elephant those who have the knack of selfeffacement and appearing to take no notice may hear quaint things sometimes, naïve comments on themselves and odd phrases of reproach and encouragement to the beast. One might, indeed, from these soliloquies, ascribe more faith in animal intelligence to the Oriental than he really cherishes. Many natives habitually talk to themselves by way of beguiling the tedium of a long road; and old women of the rustic class, when walking alone, frequently rehearse their family quarrels or bargainings with dramatic gestures.

Camels have but a limited vocabulary, nor do they seem to have brought with them the Arabic "tss, tss," which is the "woa" of the beast through