ETTAIAH. 
121 
wicked Kali, exciting a fierce thirst for wealth 
in the bosoms of the young men of Ettaiah, 
by awakening their avarice vanquished their scruples 
and their fears, and day by day provided new 
victims for Khoob-soorut. Some of these rash ad- 
venturers, who had penetrated into the fatal palace 
in the hopes of attaining unbounded wealth, returned 
with their sight or speech destroyed; the teeth of 
some became brass, the limbs of others marble, the 
rest were gibbering idiots, or frantic madmen ; — yet 
none dared to reveal the true cause of his misfortune ; 
and terror and doubt anew possessed the city of 
Ettaiah. At length the virtuous Buddunaut unable 
to restrain the fatal curiosity of his people, and filled 
with pity for the strange and awful bereavements 
thereby incurred, assembled the whole train of 
maimed and blighted sufferers before the great Temple 
of Krishna, and endeavoured to elicit a confession 
which should discover the cause of that god’s dis- 
pleasure. 
** His exhortations and menaces were answered by 
tears and lamentations, but none dare breathe the 
name, nor detail the fiendish malice of Khoob-soorut. 
Then Buddunaut retired within the temple, and 
there, assisted by the principal Brahmins, he per- 
formed solemn rites in honour of the god, and 
adjured him to reveal the cause of his wrath, and 
why the furnace of affliction was anew kindled to 
devour his wretched people. 
M 
