244 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
The beauty of his rival was for ever destroyed, 
and finding that his once beloved wife had escaped his 
villany, his heart relented, and he expressed the fullest 
contrition for the crime ; but Neel Khoar would not 
forgive him, and entreated her husbands to carry him 
forth and cast him headlong down the cataract; which 
possibly they would speedily have executed had they 
not been withheld by the villagers. 
“ It must not be,” said an aged Sanias (a class of 
religious devotees) ; “he shall not die. Did the Sanias 
of old destroy the elephant when he turned against the 
life of his protector, or did he not rather re-transform 
him into a mouse as a more lasting punishment for his 
treachery ? ” 
Neel Khoar, having listened to the words of this 
wise devotee, became appeased, and her curiosity being 
excited, she requested that he would favour her with 
a recital of the story concerning that ancient Sanias 
and the elephant, in order that she might be able to 
judge what sort of punishment she could best award 
to the culprit. Then the old man, delighting to re- 
count the wisdom and the good deeds of one of his 
own tribe, seated himself in the midst of them, and 
thus told 
THE FABLE OF THE MOUSE AND THE SANIAS. 
“You have all of you heard of the celebrated town 
and temples of Saniaskotta in Rungpoor. That 
sacred place derives its name from the hero of 
