114 G. A. GrHefson — Kavitta Bamdyam of Tulsi Das. [March, 



In 172, he simply adores the name of Rama, and in 173, he describes 

 a terrible mortality which is occurring in the holy city. No. 174 

 admittedly has nothing to do with the plague. It is a kavitta in praise 

 of a falcon. In No. 175, he entreats Hanuman and Ramacandra to 

 save the city from an epidemic. In 176 he entreats Ramacandra to 

 eave the city from calamities under which it is suffering. 



Finally, in 177 he describes how the city had been punished for its 

 eins by an epidemic of plague, and how it had been saved by Rama- 

 candra in answer to the Poet's prayers. 



Regarding this plague, I here give the following extract from the 

 Times' Weekly Edition for January 28th, 1898 :— 



How important these improvements in treatment are may be 

 learned from the records of nn outbreak which took place at Agra in 

 the year of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1605-1627), 

 Its origin is narrated in the Emperor's autobiography as "a strange 

 and wonderful tale," of which, however, his Majesty, after direct 

 inquiry, vouches for the truth. The daughter of a family that had 

 fallen victims to the plague saw one day in the courtyard " a mouse 

 falling and rising in a distracted state. It was running about in every 

 direction after the manner of drunkards and did not know where to 

 g^o." A cat to which it was thrown nearly died, and soon afterwards 

 the plague or bubo appeared in one of the female slaves and spread 

 through the household, killing 17 people in the space of eight or nine 

 days. The correspondence of this story with the supposed propagation 

 of the plague in Bombay by infected rats brought in ships from China 

 is significant. But even more striking is a preceding passage in the 

 Royal autobiography, translated by Mr. Alexander Rogers for the 

 Indian Magazine of the present month of January, 1898 : — 



At this time those who were loyal represented that the disease of 

 the plague (ta^iln) was prevalent in the city of Agra, so that in a day 

 300 people, more or less, were dying of it. Under the armpits, or in 

 the groin, or below the throat a lump comes and they die. This is the 

 third year that it has raged in the cold weather and disappeared in the 

 commencement of the hot season. It is a strange thing that in these 

 three years the infection has spread to all the towns and villages in the 

 neio-hbourhood of Agra, and there has been no trace of it in the Fat^- 

 pur Sikri, and as far as for 2| kos from Amanabad to Fathpur. The 

 people of that place have forsaken their own homes and gone to other 

 villages. 



So great was the terror of infection that those stricken were left 

 to their fate, *' and at last it came to such a pass that through excessive 

 suspicion no one would come near them." If the origin of the disease 



