the keeper's invitation and greatly enjoyed themselves. Further
on we were shown a holy man, who was feeding insects with his own
blood. He lay with his eyes shut, and the scorching rays of the
sun striking full upon his naked body. He was literally covered
with flies, mosquitoes, ants and bugs.

"All these are our brothers," mildly observed the keeper, pointing
to the hundreds of animals and insects. "How can you Europeans
kill and even devour them?"

"What would you do," I asked, "if this snake were about to bite you?
Is it possible you would not kill it, if you had time?"

"Not for all the world. I should cautiously catch it, and then
I should carry it to some deserted place outside the town, and
there set it free."

"Nevertheless; suppose it bit you?"

"Then I should recite a mantram, and, if that produced no good
result, I should be fair to consider it as the finger of Fate, and
quietly leave this body for another."

These were the words of a man who was educated to a certain extent,
and very well read. When we pointed out that no gift of Nature
is aimless, and that the human teeth are all devouring, he answered
by quoting whole chapters of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection
and Origin of Species. "It is not true," argued he, "that the
first men were born with canine teeth. It was only in course of
time, with the degradation of humanity,--only when the appetite