1833.) A Legend of Himalaya—by Calidasa. 337 
Le 
On him grow the birches, all rough with flak’d bark, 
Which wanton wild elephants eagerly mark, 
Their huge sweating fronts rubbing o’er it amain, 
Till all its peel’d folds bear the ruddy deep stain : 
That bark which hereafter, in paper’s smooth leaves, 
From min’ral red ink the trac’d letter receives ; 
Impassion’d warm lines, haply, destin’d to bear, 
By Love’s god indited, to deified fair, 
St.6, 7. The frontal pearls, &c. &c.—The European reader has no need 
to be assured that the Hare or pearl, supposed here, and in numberless other 
vw 
Hind writings to lie under the kumbha or frontal bone of the elephant, is a 
mere fabulous non-entity. The confidence with which book-learned Pandits 
will, however, assert its reality, is as surprising as it is characteristic: though 
some few, who have learned a little regard for experiment as a guide to truth, are 
cautious enough to confine its existence to the three former ages : thus making the 
frontal pearl (like the horse and ox sacrifice, perfect abandonment of the world, 
the presentation of flesh to deceased ancestors, and the levirate law), a thing too 
precious for the present degenerate Kali-Yuga or iron age of the world. 
The same fabulous character is by no means so apparent in the fragrant unctu- 
ous red ichor mentioned in St. 7, as secreted in the elephant’s forehead, and ex- 
uding during the rutting season. This persuasion, which not only pervades the li-. 
terature of the Hindds, but has been communicated by them to inquirers of other 
nations, is however generally condemned by naturalists as a vulgar error; the 
most diligent observers having failed to discover anything beyond common perspi- 
ration. (See Encycl. Metrop. Art. ELEPHANT: where is also stated a singular 
current belief, connected with this, of some natives of Western India.) Of the 
antiquity of this belief we have a singular vestige in Strabo’s description of India, 
(lib. xv. vol. 6, p. 91, ed. Siebenkees) where he states that the male elephant at that 
season grows furious, and ‘emits a sort of fat through a pore or vent which he has 
near the temples :”’ the opening of the same pore indicating the corresponding sea- 
son of the female. [kalpos Péor: 7G wey Up pet, émevddv otkor KaTexyTat Kal aypialyy. 
téte 5h Kad Alrous Ti Bid THs dvarvoys avinow hy exer Tapau Tors KpdTapous. Tals 
de Ondcias Stay 6 ats mépos otros avewyws Tuyxavn.] This information was pro- 
bably delivered by the Brabmans of Chandragupta’s court at Pataliputra to Seleu- 
cus’s ambassador Megasthenes, who is Strabo’s great authority on Indian affairs : 
for Aristotle, who wrote shortly before that communication with India, and has em- 
bodied all the information of his time, (refuting whatever he thought fabulous, )in his 
numerous books on Animals, has recorded no such particular as this of the elephant. 
Ibid. The Wi Bhirja or Mountain Birch, (Betala Bhojapatra of Wallich,) is 
surrounded, like the birch tree of Europe, with a bark consisting of several layers, 
capable of being peeled off in ample flakes, and liable to become rough from the con- 
stant unequal peeling of its folds, though the texture of each layer or cuticle in itself 
is remarkably smooth : hence it is described in St. 57 of this canto as WUATAL or 
pleasant to the touch, and thus a fit clothing for Siva’s attendant gods. Though 
om te , 
