to legalise the marriage. It corresponds exactly to the Gândharva marriage of the Sanskrit Dharma Shâstras. The marriage however is kept secret by the lovers and they are at first inclined to wait for a favourable opportunity to make it public. But neither the husband nor the wife have sufficient patience to wait for that opportunity. They are impatient to rush to each other's arms (1131 and 1138) before the minds of the parents and relations of the girl can be prepared to receive the news of their secret marriage. But lovers in the Tamil land had perfected in the course of ages an ingenious machinery to stead them under a dilemma of this kind. The lover undergoes a sort of martyrdom both physical and moral in order to induce the people of the village and the parents of his lady-love to pity his distraction and offer him of their own accord the object of his passion. A few branches of the palmyra tree are joined together so as to enable a man to sit astride on the united plank, the lover sits on it, and a number of his friends carry him in that posture into the village singing passionate songs of love. The
