[FN#443] In the Tamil story-book, the English translation of which is called “The Dravidian Nights’ Entertainments,” a wandering princess, finding the labour-pains coming upon her, takes shelter in the house of a dancing-woman, who says to the nurses, “If she gives birth to a daughter, it is well [because the woman could train her to follow her own profession’], but if a son, I do not want him;—­close her eyes, remove him to a place where you can kill him, and throwing a bit of wood on the ground tell her she has given birth to it.”—­I daresay that a story similar to the Bengali version exists among the Tamils.

[FN#444] It is to be hoped we shall soon have Sir Richard Burton’s promised complete English translation of this work, since one half is, I understand, already done.