12 HIKAYAT SERI RAMA. 
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 bow- 
ing politely. The questions put by the Raja were quite un- 
necessary, 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 Séri 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 disproportioned to his size 
and he directed him to betake himself to Mount Inggil-béringgil, 
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. 
Next day the monkey set off for the mountain, but dis- 
regarding all the fruit, which was there in plenty, he made 
straight for the top and thence he saw the large round red fruit 
mentioned 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 
*This is of course a corruption of the name of Hanuman, the 
monkey-king of the Ramayana, but the Perak narrator has blundered 
over the first syllable and has supplied the word ‘‘Shah” as one 
having a‘specific meaning. The adventures of Hanuman are, in this’ 
story, assigned to Kera Kechil. 
Jour, Straits Branch 
