Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/143

 Rh with him a sword, a hen's egg, a swivel-gun, a flute, a piece of scented wood for burning, and some incense. The king, influenced by the opinion of the seven lying astrologers, directed that the child should at once be put into a rickety old boat and set adrift on the river. The princess wept on hearing what was to be the fate of her child, and directed her maids to put into the boat a basket full of clothes and another full of provisions for the child. This done, the boat was cast off amid the roaring of cannons which the king had ordered to be fired off for joy that evil had been averted from his kingdom.

The king's elder brother, Bandahara Tua, was living some distance away, at the mouth of the river, and, hearing the cannons, he said, "Surely a prince has been born, and the king has believed the lying astrologers and cast his son away." He prayed that God would send his new-born nephew to him, and, after waiting a day and a night on the bank of the river, at last the little boat was wafted up to his very steps. The Bandahara went into the cabin to seek his nephew, and having found him he brought him on deck to take him to his house, but found that while he was below the boat had floated into midstream, and was being rapidly carried out to sea. Day and night for a year the boat went on, and at the end of that time the little castaway, now able to talk, gave himself the name of Raja Donan. One day the Bandahara, at the request of his nephew, who said he felt a presentiment of approaching evil, climbed into the look-out place and carefully scanned the horizon, and at length sighted a great fleet of 99 ships approaching them, whose masts were like a grove of cotton-trees. Raja Donan now prepared for the worst, and put on the magic garments which his mother had given him, and girded on the sword which was supernaturally produced at the time of his birth. The fleet approached; it was that of Raja Chamar Lant, of Mundam Batu, who was on board the "Biduri," the largest of all. On sighting the little boat, Raja Chamar Lant ordered one of his galleys to be manned to see who was on board the stranger. This huge boat, carrying 44 rowers, came alongside, and those on board it saw no one but a pretty child, who said that he came "from the country of Mandi An gin, from the rice-fields where there are no embankments, from the waters where no fish are ever seen, a lonely place where the ape howls nightly,