cupation of charcoal-burner, the means of which were supplied by the thick growth of the forest, which for ages had not been cleared by the industry of man. The girl being young and of a comely person, Yougal, after the first meeting, used to seek her and pour into her young, but willing, ear the grateful accents of attachment which soon warmed his heart towards this interesting forester. Ere long he communicated to his beautiful favourite what he was in the habit of witnessing at the cavern. The Suniassi had not the slightest suspicion that his slave would for a moment so far forget the respect due to him, and the infallible degradation which such a hallucination must bring upon himself, as to conclude a matrimonial alliance with a pariah. Yougal, however, considering that he was secure from discovery, did not deny himself the pleasure of meeting his favourite Mariataly, whenever he accompanied his master to the desert, always imparting to her the nature of the Suniassi's devotions. Sometimes the devotee would avail himself of his peculiar power of disengaging his soul from his body, and continue for days together in the other world, leaving his royal carcass to the care of his faithful slave, who, upon these occasions used to leave it to the vermin which covered it with filth and slime, whilst he enjoyed, without interruption or suspicion,-for the soul of his master when out of its earthly prison became utterly unconscious of what was passing in this gross world,—the society of the object of his idolatry. Upon one occasion, whilst the spirit of the holy man was among the Asuras, Yougal, as usual, was passing his time with the sprightly Mariataly, to whom he expressed the great desire he felt to know the words of that mystic prayer, called the mandiram, at the utterance of which the soul of his master quitted the flesh in which it was confined and took its flight above the stars. "Can't you listen," inquired the anxious girl, "and note down the words ?" "No, he mutters that potential mantram* so inaudibly, that none but disembodied spirits can catch the sound; and I despair of being able to make myself master of his secret." The mantras are forms of prayer, supposed by the Hindoos to possess certain and powerful influ ence. "Suppose now," asked the pretty pariah, with a sly smile, "you could get a peep into the Swerga*, would you tell me upon your return all the delightful things you saw there?—though perhaps you would fall in love with one of the Asuras, and abandon me." "No, Mariataly; that's just as likely as that I should prefer mere perfume to a water melon. Don't be jealous if I should ever manage to get above the skies, for I'm sure to come down again." 66 Because, I suppose, you are too wicked to stay there." "Not so, sweetheart, but because there's better attraction below for a poor slave like me, who is desperately in love with the prettiest pariah maiden within a circle of fifty coss."+ "Good-bye to the pretty pariah, when you are among the divinities! You know there are no comfortable bowers in the Swerga reserved for the outcast. Naraka ‡ must be our doom when the spirit abandons our deserted bodies to the vultures." "Nay, don't despair; your presence will convert the lowest abyss of Naraka into a Swerga bower, and thus achieve a triumph of which Indra himself might be proud." "Is this jesting a fair sample of your truth? if your love is of a piece with it, I have very little security for its outlasting the season.' "I swear to thee, Mariataly, that I love thee better than the paradise whither I am rather curious to accompany my master on one of his spiritual journeys.' "Well then, if you really are so anxious to take your leave of this world for a season, you have only to get at the secret of quitting it without calling death to your aid, and the matter is settled at once." 66 Aye, but there is the difficulty; the Suniassi is too cunning to part with his mystery: how to obtain it by stealth requires thought and management.” "Will you promise me that, should you take a journey to the upper world, you will tell me all you see there when you come back?" "Depend upon me. Adieu for the present. One kiss. We meet again to-morrow, when I may have better news for one who loves a bit of gossip as dearly as a kid loves the mother's milk." *The Hindoo paradise. + The coss is about two miles. One of the Hindoo hells. Yougal was transported with the playful good humour of the fascinating pariah. He loved her fondly, as he had fully persuaded himself she entertained towards him a simple but ardent affection. It soon became evident to the slave that Veramarken, this was the fanatic's name, meditated one of his aerial journeys out of the body, as his penances had lately been extremely rigid, it being his invariable practice to torture himself with more than usual severity whenever he determined to pay a visit to the gods of his idolatry in their own celestial habitations. For several days the devotee had continued in the cavern, and only allowed himself a few grains of rice at sunset, washing it down with a single mouthful of fetid water, which had been conveyed from the Ganges at least two months previously, and which was considered spiritually efficacious in proportion to its foulness. He sat hour after hour absorbed in holy meditations, having given orders to Yougal not to appear at the cavern for seven days. On the sixth noon, however, the slave stole stealthily into the sacred retreat of the Suniassi, unobserved by the holy man, who was at the moment undergoing a most painful penance. The place was wrapped in solemn gloom, except in one corner of the cavern where a sickly lamp, formed of a reed enveloped in flax, and dipped in cocoa-nut oil, diffused a faint glimmer that extended not many feet beyond the spot in which it was fixed. The penitent was too much occupied by his devotions to observe the entrance of Yougal, who advanced softly into the gloom, where he could witness, unperceived, what was going on. Having seated himself upon the damp earth, he awaited with much impatience the issue of a scene which he expected would terminate in his master's temporary ascent to Indra's paradise. The Suniassi was lying upon his back: underneath his spare emaciated form was an iron frame covered with spikes about an inch long, sufficiently sharp to irritate severely, without puncturing, the skin. Upon this he lay, muttering certain mantras of mystical import, while his body was racked by inexpressible pangs; still he disdained to utter a cry: on the contrary he expressed his grateful satisfaction at the ease with which the gods whom he served had blessed him. The slave listened with anxious impatience to catch the words of the mysterious mandiram, which he knew the royal fakeer must utter before his spirit could be released from the encumbrance of emaciated flesh, to which it was doomed to be imprisoned in this scene of severe trial for a better condition. No intelligible sound, however, met Yougal's ear. The Suniassi continued to mutter his devout aspirations, and the disappointed listener began to despair of catching a word. Hour after hour passed on, still the saint did not raise himself from the iron frame; sometimes by his deep and hollow breathing he appeared to have sunk into an unquiet slumber in the midst of his torments, but the mutterings were so soon resumed that the interval of repose, if obtained, could have only been of the shortest duration. The slave at length made up his mind to quit the cavern and leave his master to his painful reveries. Upon putting his head beyond the entrance, he found that the rain was falling copiously; he, therefore, determined to remain until the shower should abate, preferring the gloom of a dry shelter to a certain drenching, though with a prospect of meeting the sprightly Mariataly. The winds were already beginning to lift up their voices, and a darker gloom was rapidly mantling the heavens. The lightning flickered brightly at intervals from the heavy purple clouds in which they had been long pent, and the thunder growled audibly in the distance. This was a grievous disappointment to Yougal, who had long been tired of his vigil. He retired with reluctance to the innermost recess of the cave, to await the abatement of the menacing storm, which soon assumed a more fearful aspect, and rendered a visit to the pariah that night an enjoyment no longer to be hoped for. The rain now fell in streams, hissing through the air and ploughing up the parched earth with the violence and force of a cataract. The lightning blazed round the whole vault of heaven, seeming to hang upon the skirts of the clouds, which were charged with elemental ammunition, and appeared every moment to be rent asunder, by some invisible concussion, and to pour forth their central fires, which expanded with inconceivable velocity as they quitted their aerial prison; wrapping the whole firmament in one vast sheet of living flame. The thunder rolled and burst in a rapid succession of explosions so loud and deafening, that it seemed to the appalled slave, as if the artillery of the skies were opened against this lower world by the incensed deities, whom the wickedness of mankind had roused to sudden retribution. The din of the elemental conflict was so great as entirely to drown the ejaculations of the holy man, whose voice increased with the tempest, and whose prayers rose in power and strength in proportion to the tumult without. He did not, however, move from his position of prostrate humiliation, but crossed his arm over his breast, occasionally placing his fingers upon his forehead in token of profound devotion. Yougal wished him fifty times in the cow's mouth,* through which the Ganges pours its fertilizing streams over the hills of Himalaya, and thence through the Gangetic plain into the far sea. He dared not stir, lest the royal fakeer should be made conscious of his propinquity, a discovery which might expose him to something worse than either stripes or imprisonment. Fortunately for him, though the lightning was so vivid as to render every object visible throughout the cavern, the position of his master prevented him from seeing any thing but the roof immediately above him. Yougal consequently escaped that notice which would have been attended with extreme castigation; for though the Suniassi permitted his slave to attend him to the cavern upon ordinary occasions, he always forbid his immediate presence whenever he was about to perform those mysterious rites and piaculary inflictions, which invariably preceded his separation of body and spirit for one of those visits to the other world, which the penitentiary was exceedingly fond of taking by way of relaxation from the rigid discipline of his ascetic life. After some hours the storm having subsided, the cavern was left to its original gloom and silence, which was only interrupted by the mantras of the holy man. On a sudden, the fanatic raised himself from his recumbent position and throwing himself prostrate upon the bare earth, repeated deliberately, and with an audible utterance, the mystical mandiram. The menial's ear drank in every word as it fell from his master's lips; he thus became possessed of the secret of dispossessing his body of its spiritual occupant, and of taking a journey to the region of everlasting glory. * A rock in the Himalaya mountains, in which is an opening, something like the mouth of a cow, and long supposed to be the source of the Ganges. VOL. X.-NO. III.-MARCH 1837. No sooner had the Suniassi uttered the potent prayer, than his soul was on its way to the Swerga. His body remained upon the natural floor of the cavern without either motion or consciousness. Yougal turned it over and over to make himself sure that it was without a soul, and soon became fully satisfied that it was nothing more than a lump of senseless flesh; the principle of life however remained, for the pulse sensibly throbbed, and the breath came feebly, though there was no other sign of animation. Here was at length presented the opportunity so long and anxiously sought by the slave. Should he avail himself of his power and travel in the spirit to the unknown world? He had some misgivings about the matter. How should he face the gods if he appeared in their presence without the preparatory penances? They might expel him from their abodes, and cast him down to the hottest extremity of Lohangaraka.* How should he meet his master in such company as he must be enjoying in the heaven of Indra, sanctified by the austere devotions of a whole life, and thus rendered fit for intercourse with celestial society. He had too much reason to fear that amenial who had spent all his days in merriment and good living, would be looked upon as an intruder into the celestial presences, he therefore thought that he had best keep the secret of the mandiram to himself and use it hereafter as the occasion might warrant. Upon casting his eyes however upon the attenuated frame of his master, it suddenly occurred to him that if he were to utter the words which would disengage his essence from the dross of clay by which it was encumbered, he might, in place of aspiring to explore the regions above the firmament, cause it to enter the unconscious trunk of the royal Suniassi, and thus become a sovereign instead of remaining a bondman. He was transported at the idea, his brain grew dizzy with rapture, and under the excitement of ambitious anticipations, he pronounced the words of the mandiram. His spirit was instantly disengaged and transfused into the inanimate form of his master; the latter being endued with consciousness, arose from the earth, and the soul of a menial gave animation to the body of a king. Yougal was for a moment astonished at the sudden transformation, but recovering *This signifies hot iron coals, and is the lowest of the twenty-one hells of the Hindoos. R himself, he looked upon his own vile car- transformation, and actuated by an impulse cass, and spurned it with contempt. "Well," said he, aloud, knowing there was no one present to overhear him, "I venture to say this is the last time the body which now imprisons my soul shall lie upon spikes. The Suniassi will henceforward grow fat, or Yougal's love of good feeding must greatly abate with his exaltation, of which, however, the present sharpness of his appetite does not warrant the expectation. All penance shall be foreclosed, for the time to come, and I'll warrant me the dignities of a prince will be much truer enjoyment than the devout discipline of starvation and cold iron. Now for royalty for the rest of my days! May my master long continue to enjoy a paradise above the clouds, while I content myself with enjoying his paradise below them." The counterfeit monarch almost lost his wits for joy when he found he had been so suddenly transmuted from a slave to a sovereign. He danced round the cavern with such mad delight that the scared bats fell about his ears, and obliged him to quit his concealment covered with foam, produced by the violence of his exertions. By way of precaution, however, before leaving the place of his auspicious transformation, he took a knife from the pocket of the tunic that covered the body which his soul had so lately quitted, and having severed the head from the trunk, proceeded towards the palace, which was distant a good day's journey. Day had already begun to dawn, and before he had advanced two coss, the sun was flooding the plain through which his road lay, with its early glories. Upon reaching the neighbourhood of Mariataly's abode, Yougal perceived her as usual bathing in a tank accompanied by two or three of her caste, who were rigidly punctual in performing their matutinal ablutions; this neverthless did not obviate the odium of pollution which attached to their race. Yougal concealed himself behind a tree, a little way out of the path, by which he knew the pariah would return to her humble habitation in the jungle. He had not long been in ambush before he heard the tripping step of his beloved as she pattered with her naked feet the beaten pathway. When she approached the tree, he sprang forward to meet her, but she started back, as if a scorpion had risen before her feet. For a moment the slave had forgotten his of indignant surprise, exclaimed, "How now, girl! why, you start from me as if I was a white man that had his unholy stomach filled with sacred beef, and made no distinction between a cow and a guana*. Why do you shun me?" "Because you know that a pariah maiden may not come within reach of a brahmin's breath without hazarding her own life.” "Ha, ha, há!" cried the transformed menial, "by the chuckra of Vishnoo that cannot be denied, but I'm no brahmin, bibit; I'm Yougal, your slave, but no longer a bondman." Mariataly was incredulous. She imagined that the Suniassi, who, among the few unhappy outcasts residing in the immediate neighbourhood of his sacred retreat, was as notorious for his gallantries, as for the severities of his penances, was endeavouring to tamper with her credulity for the most undevout of purposes; she, therefore, replied with some asperity, retreating gradually as she spoke "My eyes are not yet dim, most holy Suniassi, and I cannot mistake the spare, withered, but sacred form of the venerable Veramarken for the round, elastic, yet gross material frame of the slave Yougal." "Chah, bibi, this is all well enough when others are by, but we are alone, and there is no need of this reverence. I don't want your respect, but your love, Mariataly; I'm no more Veramarken than thou art Lakshmi ‡, except in seeming; I'm no more nor less than thy adorer Yougal." He hurried towards her, but she retreated with such activity, that he could not overtake her. The severity of those tortures to which the ascetic's body had so lately been exposed, had rendered it incapable of much exertion, and its new tenant was extremely mortified to find that he could neither manifest the warmth nor energy which his feelings really prompted. The body of Veramarken was too feeble to give full expression to the youthful passion of Yougal. even of a devotee, who values me only for my person, and looks upon my soul as abandoned to the demons of Naraka *. You pursue me in vain, for I am determined never to listen to the love of one, who, while he asserts the highest spiritual purity, indulges in the grossest sensuality." Saying this she bounded forward, and was in a few moments lost amid the mazes of the forest, where her inexperienced lover could not penetrate. that Yougal was greatly mortified at this first issue of his transmutation. He became of a sudden rather disheartened, fearing so inauspicious a commencement augured unfavourably of the ultimate success of his elevation to kingly honours. He resolved, however, to be revenged upon the pariah girl for having slighted his love, and with this determination resumed his journey towards the palace, where he arrived just before sunset. The queen greeted him with cold respect, but he, dazzled by her beauty, sprang eagerly forward to embrace her, when the stiffness of his limbs, from long and rigorous penance, caused him to stumble, and the lady's hookha happening unfortunately to be in the way, he fell over it, and measured his length upon the Persian rug which had been spread under it. The beautiful Maldavee, with a grave composure of feature, which at once showed how far her veneration for the saint outstript her love for the man, approached the Suniassi, and bending upon her knee beside him, first touching the floor with her small delicate palms, and then applying them to her forehead, in token of the profoundest reverence, raised her devout lord from his prostration, and having placed him upon his legs, making a second salaam, expressed her hope that he had sustained no mischief. The soul of Yougal was sensible of pain through the bodily organs of Veramarken; but, although he felt himself very unpleasantly shaken by his fall, he nevertheless pursed up his grim features into a smile, and throwing his arms round the queen's neck, much to her astonishment and more to her discomposure, he kissed her with an energy which she had never before experienced from his lips. She did not receive the greeting as he expected, but reminded him that such warm demonstrations of affection were not quite consistent with the mortified life of a Suniassi. "I have done with mortification now," cried the counterfeit Veramarken; “no more tearing of flesh, and defrauding the natural appetites—no more sleeping upon a metal bed covered with flesh-hooks, in a dark cavern, with the bats for lookers on, and with snakes to hiss their applauses. No, my sita,* I have now obtained the highest point of spiritual perfection; I intend henceforward to devote my days to those gratifications which I have hitherto denied myself. Instead of this withered, lean, hungry frame, you shall soon behold a set of comely limbs, and cheeks as round and broad as the lotus leaf. Come order me a curry of prawns and a pilau, for I feel a grievous craving after so long a fast. I should like too to fortify my stomach at the same time with a draught of fine arrack, distilled from the rice of Serindib.+" The queen's amazement increased every moment at these extravagant demands of her late sanctified husband. She could not account for the change. He seemed to her possessed; but she knew his power, and therefore feared to contradict him. The curry of prawns, the pilau and the arrack, were accordingly laid before him, the whole of which he dispatched within the space of about three minutes, devouring it with ravenous impetuosity. Her astonishment now rose to a climax. The hungry saint observing the expression of her countenance, cried with an exulting tone, "Is not this the way to make a lean body fat?" The queen was silent, not yet daring to enter upon too close a familiarity with a man whom the gods delighted to honor. "Well, Maldavee," continued the prince; "don't you think it wiser to eat, drink, and adore one's wife, than to fast, groan, and love nothing but air, penances, and the society of reptiles, in order to be allowed a visit now and then to the divinities?" Maldavee hesitated to reply. She imagined that this might be an artifice of the holy man to try how far she was impressed with a sacred awe for those austere obligations by which the Suniassi was bound. Yougal saw her hesitation, and said gaily, "Nay, don't be under any apprehension at communicating your thoughts. * Sita signifies bride. The island of Ceylon. I am no |