102 SRI RAMA. 



who was no less a person than Shah Numan himself * " by- 

 pulling the great toe of each foot alternately/'' Directing the 

 attendants to follow him with his cushion and betel-box and 

 gold and silver vessels, Shah Numan entered the great hall 

 and at once accosted the monkey, who came down from the 

 throne and advanced bowing politely. The questions put by 

 the Raja were quite unnecessary, for he knew all about his 

 visitor already, and was able to tell him his name and that of 

 his father and mother and declared himself to be related to 

 Sri Rama and his wife. He invited the monkey to stay with 

 him, and told the female attendants to supply his " grandchild," 

 as he called him, with plenty of tender shoots and leaves to eat. 

 But when he found that his guest ate up forty-four baskets 

 full of shoots in one night, he told him plainly" that he could 

 not possibly entertain an animal whose appetite was so dispro- 

 portioned to his size and he directed him to betake himself to 

 Mount Ingcjil ber-inggil, where there were said to be all kinds 

 of fruit. He warned him, however, against attempting to eat 

 one large round red fruit which he described. 



Nest day the monkey set off for the mountain, but disregard- 

 ing all the fruit, which was there in plenty, he made straight 

 for the top and thence he saw the large round red fruit men- 

 tioned by Hanuman. He tried to grasp it, when the thing 

 spoke to him and declared itself to be no fruit, but the sun 

 itself, placed there by God to illumine the earth. In spite of 

 warnings to keep off, the monkey made an audacious attempt 

 to seize the sun and fell senseless to the earth. 



The scene then changes to a country called Tahwil, where 

 there reigned a King called Shah Kobad, who had a daughter 

 known as the Princess Renek Jintan. The latter was one 

 day amusing herself with music and singing and dancing at a 

 place outside her father's city where her people had pitched a 

 tent for her, when suddenly the little monkey fell down in the 

 middle of the assembled multitude. The Princess took charge 

 of him, for he still had life though unconscious, and she sent to 



* This is of course a corruption of the name of Hantjman, the 

 monkey-king of the Ramayana, but the Perak narrator has blunder- 

 ed over the first syllable and has supplied the word " Shah " as one 

 having a specific meaning. The adventures of Hantjman are, in 

 this story, assigned to Kea Kechil. 



