Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/384

KOMATI a fine smell! I have never experienced the like."This induced another man to put his finger in, and he too was stung, and made similar pretence. All of them were thus stung in succession, and then consoled each other. Rh Once upon a time, a great king levied a tax upon milk, and all his subjects were sorely tried by it. The Kōmatis, who kept cows, found the tax specially inconvenient. They, therefore, bribed the minister, and mustered in strength before the king, to whom they spoke concerning the oppressive nature of the tax. The king asked what their profit from the milk was. " A pie for a pie " said they to a man, and the king, thinking that persons who profit only a pie ought not to be troubled, forthwith passed orders for the abolition of the tax.

Rh

Once upon a time, a Pāndyan King had a silver vessel of enormous size made for the use of the palace, and superstitiously believed that its first contents should not be of an ordinary kind. So he ordered his minister to publish abroad that all his subjects were to put into the vessel a chembu-full of milk from each house. The frugal Kōmatis, hearing of this, thought, each to himself, that, as the king had ordered such a large quantity, and others would bring milk, it would suffice if they took a chembu-full of water, as a little water poured into such a large quantity of milk would not change its colour, and it would not be known that they only contributed water. All the Kōmatis accordingly each brought a chembu-full of water, and none of them told the others of the trick he was about to play. But it so happened that the Kōmatis were the first to enter the palace, while they