24 
The Bengali Poem, Candi. 
marvellous birds, a sari* and a parrot, versed in all kinds of knowledge, 
and is desirous of procuring a golden cage to hold them. Such a cage 
can only he made in Gaur, the old capital of Bengal; and as Dhanapati 
arrives, hy his ill fortune, at this juncture, he is peremptorily sent off to 
Gaur on this errand. He has to proceed at once, without being allowed 
to return to his house; he can only send a hurried line to Lahana, 
entrusting Khullana and the household to her care. He arrives at Gaur, 
hut finds continual obstacles and delays while the cage is being constructed, 
and he remains there many long months. 
At first the two wives, left alone in the house, lived in perfect harmony 
together: Lahana acted as the affectionate elder sister; she cooked her 
choicest dainties for Khullana and devoted herself to making her happy. 
But this state of things did not last long; the maidservant Hurbala saw with 
disgust the unusual concord, and determined in her mind to do her best to 
put an end to it. “ "Where the two co-wives are not quarrelling, surely the 
maid in that house is crazy; I will carry tales of one to the other, she will 
love me like her own life.” Hurbala soon kindled Lahana’s latent jealousy, 
as she warned her of her coming loss of influence when the merchant 
came home from his journey: “ he will be the slave of her beauty; you 
will be only mistress in the kitchen.” 
Lahana, in her despair, bethought her of an old friend of hers, 
a brahman woman named Lllavati, who professed to be well versed in 
philtres and charms ; and she despatched Hurbala to her with a message 
and a rich present of plantains, rice, and cakes, with fifty rupees as 
a fee and some bright new cowries and betel-nuts. “Hurbala took two 
from these last on her own account, stuffing one into each cheek. The 
porters go before and behind, and she in the middle ; slowly, slowly 
she marches, swinging her arms and gathering some campak flowers as 
she goes.” 
She left the writers’ quarter on the left, 
And elated she entered the brahmans’ quarter. 
She arrived at the house of the brahmam medicine-woman, 
She calls loudly at her door for the lady Lila. 
* Turdus salica. These two birds are often mated in Hindu legends. For a si mil ar 
mating compare the traditional attachment between the couleuvre (adder) and the murene in 
Provence, see Mr. J. B. Andrews (Revue des traditions populaires, tome ix, p. 335, 1894). 
Cf. infra , p. 30. 
