342 The Birth of Uma— (Juny, 
13. 
For him the large Yaks in his cold plains that bide 
Whisk here and there, playful, their tails’ bushy pride. 
And evermore flapping those fans of long hair 
Which borrow’d moon-beams have made splendid and fair,— 
Proclaim at each stroke, (what our flapping men sing) 
His title of honour ‘‘ The dread Mountain-King !”’ 
14. 
On him, when their conscious self-stripping ev’n shames 
The frolicsome spirits of Heaven’s piping dames, 
To please them, the clouds have a thick curtain made, 
Which o’er the cave’s mouth drops its shelt’ring broad shade. 
= 
St. 13. Of the Yk or Bos grunniens, a description may be found in Hamilton’s 
Hindustan, vol. ii. p. 569, in the midst of the description of Thibet,—or in any 
book of Natural History written subsequently to Turner’s Embassy to that country. 
The conceit contained in these lines of C4lidasa, is one which I fear will scarcely ap- 
prove itself to the taste of European readers : and can only be understood by explain- 
ing 1. that of the hairy tail of this animal, called 3A Chamar, the Hindds make 
the flappers commonly used for brushing away fliesand musquitoes, which are thence 
called in Sanscrit qrav or @yazyt but in the common Hindvi language ict 
ie. US = Sg or chowrie : and 2. that the waving of such a chowrie set in a golden 
cry ce 
handle over the head of a Prince or over the image of a God, is accompanied 
with the proclamation of his name and titles, and reckoned among the constant 
emblems or insignia of royalty. [A most striking example of the importance 
attached to this may be seen in Col. Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 
p. 265, where an apparition of the sanguinary goddess of Chittore, (a form of our 
Parvati) demands twelve regal victims as the price of her continued protection of 
the city from the Tatar invaders of the close of the 13th century. ‘‘ On each day 
enthrone a prince: let the kirnia, the chehtra, and the ehdmra proclaim his sove- 
reignty, and for three days let his decrees be supreme : on the fourth let him meet 
his foe and his fate. Thenonly mayI remain.’ The terrible history that followed 
the promulgation of this supernatural announcement must be fresh in the mind of 
every reader of that deeply interesting work.] Hence the fancy of the poet: that 
the grunting ox, frisking in his natural state on the high table-land of Thibet and 
Nip4l, anticipates his fine tail’s future destiny, and flaps it to proclaim the ho- 
nours of his wild liege lord ‘“‘ Himalaya, King of mountains.’’ 
St. 14. The poet here returns to the female Kinnaras or heavenly musicians, 
whom he left in St. 11, pursuing their laborious way to the upper regions, and 
glad to disengage themselves of any clothing that would impede their progress. 
He brings them tothe mountain-caverns, ever the favourite residence of heathen dei- 
ties, of female deities especially ;—in the words of old Hesiod, (Theogon. y. 129.) 
Ocav xapievtas évatAous 
Nupoéwy at vaiovow av’ ovpea BnoonevTa. 
The covering dropped from the clouds to hide them from view, is vindicated 
from every unnatural exaggeration by the following passage in p. 348 of Fraser’s 
