Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/257

Rh and after him, with their hair and clothes all wet, decked with garlands of white lotuses, carrying bunches of red lotuses, eating the edible stalks of water-plants, and with drops of water and mud trickling from them.

Now the chiefs of trading caravans, whenever a headwind blows, ride in their carriage in front, surrounded by their attendants, and thus escape the dust; and when it blows from behind, they, in the same manner, ride behind. At that time there was a headwind, so the merchant went in front.

As the demon saw him coming, he turned his carriage out of the way, and greeted him kindly, saying, "Where are you going to?"

And the merchant hurrying his carriage out of the way, made room for the carts to pass, and waiting beside him, said to the demon, "We have come thus far from Benares. And you I see with lotus wreaths, and water-lilies in your hands, eating lotus stalks, soiled with dirt, and dripping with water and mud. Pray, does it rain on the road you have come by, and are there tanks there covered with water-plants?"

No sooner had the demon heard that, than he answered; "What is this that you say? Yonder streak is green forest; from thence onwards the whole country abounds with water, it is always raining, the pools are full, and here and there are ponds covered with lotuses." And as the carts passed by one after another, he asked, "Where are you going with these carts?"

"To such and such a country," was the reply.

"And in this cart, and in this, what have you got?" said he.

"Such and such things."