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JUDGMENT-SEAT OF VIKRAMADITYA 279 And so, in after time in India, when any judge pronounced sentence with great skill, it would be said of him, ^' Ah, he must have sat in the judgment-seat of Vikramaditya I " And this was the habit of speech of the whole country. Yet in Ujjain itself, the poor people forgot that the heaped-up ruins a few miles away had been his palace, and only the rich and learned, and the wise men who lived in kings' courts, remembered.

The story I am about to tell you happened long, long ago ; but yet there had been time for the old palace and fortress of Ujjain to fall into ruins, and for the sand to be heaped up over them, covering the blocks of stone, and bits of old wall, often with grass and dust, and even trees. There had been time, too, for the people to forget.

In those days, the people of the villages, as they do still, used to send their cows out to the wild land to graze.

Early in the morning they would go, in the care of the shepherds, and not return till evening, close on dusk. How I wish I could show you that coming and going of the Indian cows 1

Such gentle little creatures they are, with such large wise eyes, and a great hump between their shoulders 1 And they are not timid or wild, like our cattle. For in India, amongst the Hindus, every one loves them. They are very useful and