XIII.
THE LOST CAMEL AND OTHER TALES.
FIRST PART.
There was a city called Alakapuri, famous for all the riches that sea and land can yield, and inhabited by people speaking different languages. In that city reigned a king named Alakesa, who was a storehouse of all excellent qualities. He was so just a king that during his reign the cow and the tiger amicably quenched their thirst side by side in the same pond, the cats and the rats sported in one and the same spot, and the kite and the parrot laid their eggs in the same nest, as though they were “birds of a feather.”[1] The women never deviated from the path of virtue, and regarded their husbands as gods.
- ↑ This kind of statement often occurs in stories in proof of the just reign of a monarch. The Hindû idea is that so long as justice and equity characterise a king’s rule, even beasts naturally inimical are disposed to live in friendship. When timely rain fails or famine stalks through the land, turning his eyes from the natural causes, the orthodox Hindû will say that such a king is now reigning over them unjustly, and hence the calamity.—Translator.
