88. I long to begin binding the flowers round his head.

It is evident from the Malati-Madhava, and other plays, that a victim, about to be offered as a sacrifice, had a wreath of flowers bound round the head.

89. The great vernal festival.

In celebration of the return of Spring, and said to be in honour of Krishna, and of his son Kama-deva, the god of love.  It is identified with the Holi or Dola-yatra, the Saturnalia, or rather, Carnival of the Hindus, when people of all conditions take liberties with each other, especially by scattering red powder and coloured water on the clothes of persons passing in the street, as described in the play called Ratnavali, where the crowd are represented as using syringes and waterpipes.  Flowers, and especially the opening blossoms of the mango, would naturally be much employed for decoration at this festival, as an offering to the god of love.  It was formerly held on the full moon of the month Chaitra, or about the beginning of April, but it is now celebrated on the full moon of Phalguna, or about the beginning of March.  The other great Hindu festival, held in the autumn, about October, is called Durga-puja, being in honour of the goddess Durga.  The Holi festival is now so disfigured by unseemly practices and coarse jests that it is reprobated by the respectable natives, and will probably, in the course of time, either die out or be prohibited by legal enactment.

90. Am not I named after the Koil?

Compare note 66.

91. Thy fire unerring shafts.

Compare note 47.

92. The amaranth

That is, the Kuruvaka, either the crimson amaranth, or a purple species of Barleria.

93. My finger burning with the glow of love.

However offensive to our notions of good taste, it is certain that, in Hindu erotic poetry, a hot hand is considered to be one of the signs of passionate love.  Compare Othello, Act III.  Scene 4.  ’Give me your hand:  this hand is moist, my lady—­hot, hot, and moist.’

94. The airy vapours of the desert.

A kind of mirage floating over waste places, and appearing at a distance like water.  Travellers and some animals, especially deer, are supposed to be attracted and deceived by it.

95. Himalaya.

The name of this celebrated range of mountains is derived from two Sanskrit words, hima, ‘ice’ or ‘snow’ (Lat. hiems), and alaya, ‘abode.’  The pronunciation Himalaya is incorrect.

96. As [S’]iva did the poison at the Deluge.

At the churning of the ocean, after the Deluge, by the gods and demons, for the recovery or production of fourteen sacred things, a deadly poison called Kala-kuta, or Hala-hala, was generated, so virulent that it would have destroyed the world, had not the god [S’]iva swallowed it.  Its only effect was to leave a dark blue mark on his throat, whence his name Nila-kantha.  This name is also given to a beautiful bird, not wholly unlike our jay, common in Bengal.