Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/112

Rh mountains and descends to the low country spreading its waters around islets and groves and halls and temples. From there he viewed the lovely scenery and the rapid current of the river which bore on its bosom many a bright and fragrant flower. The king and the ladies were delighted by the songs of the hill tribes. Anon, there broke on their ears the distant shouts of the hunters who captured wild elephants in pitfalls or who tore the hives of honey-bees, the splash of cascades, the trumpeting of elephants and the clang of armour amongst the soldiers who accompanied the king. While the king and his company thus enjoyed the scene, the hill-men appeared bearing on their heads the White tusks of elephants, bundles of the fragrant aghil wood, tails of the yak, pots of honey, blocks of sandal wood, lumps of red lead, arsenic and of the sulphuret of antimony; bunches of cardamom and pepper, the flour of the Kûvai root, the edible roots of the Kavalai, ripe cocoanuts and the sweet fruits of the mango and the jack; festoons of green leaves, garlic and sugarcane and flowery creepers, bunches of arecanuts and plantains, cubs of the lion and the yâli; the young of tigers and calves of elephants; the young of monkeys and the whelps of bears; the kids of mountain goats and of mountain deer; the young of musk deer; the mongoose, long-tailed peacocks, civet cats, wild fowls and prattling parrots. Presenting these products of their hills they exclaimed:-

“May thou be victorious for ever! For seven births are we thy subjects. Under the shade of a Venkai tree in the forest, a fair girl who had lost one of her breasts lay alone and in agony and breathed her last. Whence she came or whose daughter she was, we know not. Long mayst thou live for many hundred thousand year!" Châthan the master of sweet Tamil, who was in the king’s company, charmed by the royal presence, related the story of the hapless maid to the king and queen. She was, he said, the wife of a merchant of Kavirippaddinam, who having lost all his wealth to a beautiful actress of that town, came to Madura accompanied only by his faithful wife; a pair of valuable anklets was all the property left in the hands of his wife. The husband wished to sell one of the anklets, and with the money realized by its sale, he intended to start afresh the life of a merchant. His