handsome, and a daughter, the incarnation of the moon on earth, were born; and their mother expressed her wish to see them, saying, "O sisters, kindly let me feast my eyes with the sight of the babes to whom I have given birth." To this the other queens, with scornful gestures, replied, "Wretch, we admire your impudence; you want to see the fruit of your labour. See, you have brought forth young mice and frogs." Hearing this the youngest queen fainted away, and taking advantage of this, her rivals put her eight children into as many earthen pots, and buried them under the heap of ashes thrown away from the kitchen. They then shook the chain that had been intended by the king to signal the birth of his child, and in he rushed with a countenance beaming with unspeakable joy. But what was his disappointment to learn from the elder queens that the wife of whom he had made so much had given birth only to mice and frogs. He was beside himself with rage, and had the unhappy mother turned out of the palace. She was reduced to the greatest possible distress, and maintained herself by working as a ghootah-kurani (a woman who collects cow-dung cakes for fuel), while her rivals passed their time in gay festivity.
But a deep calamity seemed to have befallen the whole kingdom. The king always looked morose and grief-stricken, and his subjects heart-broken. A dark cloud enveloped the palace. Birds forgot to sing and flowers to bloom. The gardener, one morning, came to the king and said that there were no flowers in the garden to be offered by his royal master to the gods in his daily worship; but that there were eight trees, seven Champa and one Parul, bearing each a single flower, and growing on a heap of ashes near the kitchen. The king ordered the flowers to be fetched, and the gardener went on his errand. But as soon as he approached the trees, the parul (an Indian flower of red colour) said, "Ho, Champas, my seven brothers, are you awake?" "Yes, we are," came the answer; "what do you want of us?" "The king's gardener is here," replied the
