of cattle which he had left behind, without any one to look after them; but after some time he bethought himself of them and he told his bride that he must return to his cattle, whether she came with him or no.  She said that she would take leave of her parents and go with him; then the Raja gave them a farewell feast and he made over to the Goala half his kingdom, and gave him a son’s share of his elephants and horses and flocks and herds and said to him “You are free to do as you like:  you can stay here or go to your own home; but if you elect to stay here, I shall never turn you out.”  The Goala considered and said that he would live with his father-in-law but that he must anyhow go and see the cattle which he had abandoned without any one to look after them.  So the next day he and his wife set off and when they got to the jungle they found that all the cattle were lying dead.  At this the Goala was filled with grief and began to weep; then he remembered the promise of the snake that he should be able to restore the dead to life and he resolved to put it to the test.

So he told his wife that he would give the dead cows medicine and he got some jungle roots as a blind and held them to the noses of the dead animals and as he did so, he said “Come to life” and, behold, one by one the cows all got up and began lowing to their calves.  Having thus proved the promises of the snake the Goala was loud in his gratitude and he filled a large vessel with milk and poured it all out at the foot of the peepul tree and the snake came and breathed on the hair of the princess and it too became bright as gold.

The next day they collected all the cows and drove them back to the princess’ home and there the Goala and his wife lived happily, ruling half the kingdom.  And some years after the Goala reflected that the snake was to him as his father and mother and yet he had come away in a hurry without taking a proper farewell, so he went to see whether it was still there; but he could not find it and he asked the peepul tree and no answer came so he had to return home disappointed.

XX.  Kara and Guja.

Once upon a time there were two brothers named Kara and Guja who were first class shots with the bow and arrow.  In the country where they lived, a pair of kites were doing great damage:  they had young ones in a nest in a tree and used to carry off children to feed their nestlings until the whole country was desolated.  So the whole population went in a body to the Raja and told him that they would have to leave the country if he could not have the kites killed.  Then the Raja made proclamation that any one who could kill the two kites should receive a large tract of land as a reward, and thereupon many men tried to kill them; but the kites had made their nest of ploughs and clod-crushers so that the arrows could not hit them, and the shooters had to give up the attempt.  At last Kara and Guja thought that