But the seventh incarnation was the avatar of Rama, and it is this that the “Ramayana” celebrates.

Vishnu proceeds to be born unto Doosurath, King of Ayodhya, (Oude,) as the Prince Rama, or Ramchundra.  Nothing remarkable occurs thereupon until Rama has attained the marriageable age, when he espouses Seeta, daughter of the King of Mithili.

Immediately old Mrs. Mithili, our hero’s mother-in-law, being of an intriguing turn of mind, applies herself to the amiable task of worrying the poor old King of Ayodhya out of his crown or his life; and so well does she succeed, that Doosurath, for the sake of peace and quietness, would fain abdicate in favor of his son.

But Rama will have none of his royalty.  Was it for bored kings and mischief-making mothers-in-law, he asks, speaking with the ante-natal memories of Vishnu, that he came among the sons of men?  Not at all! he has a mission, and he bides his time.  For the present he will take his wife Seeta, whose will is his, and go out into the wilderness, there to build him a hut of bamboos and banian-boughs and palmyra-leaves, and be—­Seeta and he—­two jolly yogees, that is, religious gypsies,—­living on grass-roots, wild rice, and white ants, and being dirty and devout to their heart’s content.

So they went; and for a little while they enjoyed, undisturbed, their yogeeish ideas of a good time.  But by-and-by tidings came to Rawunna—­the giant with ten heads and twice ten arms, that was King of Lunka (Ceylon)—­of the plots of Mrs. Mithili, the disgust of old Doosurath, the distraction of the kingdom of Ayodhya, and the whimsical adventure of Rama and Seeta.

And immediately Rawunna, the giant, is seized in all his heads and arms with a great longing to know what manner of man this Rama may be, that he should prefer the yogee’s breech-cloth to the royal purple, a hut of leaves, with only his Seeta, to a harem of a hundred wives, white ants and paddy to the white camel’s flesh and golden partridges of Ayodhya’s imperial repasts.  Especially is he curious as to the charms of Seeta, as to the mighty magic wherewithal she renders monogamy acceptable to an Ayodhyan prince.

By Indra! he will see for himself!  So, pleading exhaustion from the cares of state, and ten headaches of trouble and dyspepsia, he announces his intention to make an excursion a few hundred coss into the country for the benefit of his health; and taking twenty carpet-bags in his hands, he sets out, in his monstrous way, for Ayodhya, leaving his kingdom in the care of a blue dwarf with an eye in the back of his neck.

With seven-coss strides he comes to Ayodhya, and straightway finds the banian hut in the forest, where Rama dwells with Seeta in the devout dirtiness of their jolly yogeery.

The god has gone abroad in search of a dinner, and is over the hills to the sandy nullahs, where the white ants are fattest; while that greasy Joan, Seeta, “doth keel the pot” at home.