his offspring and exclaims, “These children are like those my wife promised me.”  His stepmother, hearing this, threatens the nurse, who goes next morning disguised as a beggar-woman to the girl and induces her to long for the Bough that makes music, the Magic Mirror, and the bird Dickierette.  The brothers set out to fetch them leaving their shirts which become black when the mishap befalls them.  The sister, directed by a monk, catches the bird and revives the stones by the River of Life and the denouement is brought about by a sausage stuffed with diamonds.  In Miss Stokes’ Collection of Hindu Stories (No. xx.) “The Boy who had a moon on his brow and a star on his chin” also suggests the “Envious Sisters.”

[FN#350] Pop.  “Ghaut” = The steps (or path) which lead down to a watering-place.  Hence the Hindi saying concerning the “rolling stone”—­Dhobi-ka kutta; na Gharka na Ghat-ka, = a washerwoman’s tyke, nor of the house nor of the Ghat-dyke.

[FN#351] Text “Khatibah” more usually “Khutbah” = the Friday sermon preached by the Khatib:  in this the reigning sovereign is prayed for by name and his mention together with the change of coinage is the proof of his lawful rule.  See Lane, M. F., chap. iii.

[FN#352] This form of eaves-dropping, in which also the listener rarely hears any good of himself is, I need hardly now say, a favourite incident of Eastern Storiology and even of history, e.g.  Three men met together; one of them expressed the wish to obtain a thousand pieces of gold, so that he might trade with them; the other wished for an appointment under the Emir of the Moslems; the third wished to possess Yusuf’s wife, who was the handsomest of women and had reat political influence.  Yusuf, being informed of what they said, sent for the men, bestowed one thousand dinars on him who wished for that sum, gave an appointment to the other and said to him who wished to possess the lady:  “Foolish man!  What induced you to wish for that which you can never obtain?” He then sent him to her and she placed him in a tent where he remained three days, receiving, each day, one and the same kind of food.  She had him brought to her and said, “What did you eat these days past?” He replied:  “Always the same thing!”—­“Well,” said she, “all women are the same thing.”  She then ordered some money and a dress to be given him, after which, she dismissed him. (Ibn Khallikan iii. 463-64.)

[FN#353] This ruthless attempt at infanticide was in accordance with the manners of the age nor has it yet disappeared from Rajput-land, China and sundry over-populous countries.  Indeed it is a question if civilisation may not be compelled to revive the law of Lycurgus which forbade a child, male or female, to be brought up without the approbation of public officers appointed ad hoc.  One of the curses of the XIXth century is the increased skill of the midwife and physician, who are now able to preserve worthless lives and to bring up semi-abortions whose only effect upon the breed is increased degeneracy.  Amongst the Greeks and ancient Arabs the Malthusian practice was carried to excess.  Poseidippus declares that in his day—­