Old Deccan Days Part 13

"Overmuch care is worse than none at all," answered the Wuzeer, "which I will soon prove to you."

So he invited the Rajah to accompany him for a walk in the fields.

Before they had gone very far they met a poor Shepherd. The Shepherd was accustomed to be out all day long, tending his flock; he had only a coa.r.s.e cloak on, which served but insufficiently to protect him from the rain and the cold--from the dews by night and the sun by day; his food was parched corn, his drink water; and he lived out in the fields in a small hut made of plaited palm branches. The Wuzeer said to the Rajah, "You know perfectly well what hard lives these poor shepherds lead. Accost this one, and ask him if he often suffers from the exposure which he is obliged to undergo."

The Rajah did as the Wuzeer told him, and asked the Shepherd whether he did not often suffer from rheumatism, cold and fever. The Shepherd answered, "Perhaps it will surprise you, sire, to hear that I never suffer from either the one or the other. From childhood I have been accustomed to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and I suppose that is why they never affect me."

At this the Rajah was very much astonished, and he said to the Wuzeer, "I own I am surprised; but doubtless this Shepherd is an extraordinarily strong man, whom nothing would ever affect." "We shall see," said the Wuzeer; and he invited the Shepherd to the palace.

There, for a long time, the Shepherd was taken great care of; he was never permitted to go out in the sun or rain, he had good food and good clothes, and he was not allowed to sit in a draught or get his feet wet. At the end of some months the Wuzeer sent for him into a marble courtyard, the floor of which he caused to be sprinkled with water.

The Shepherd had been for some time so little used to exposure of any kind that wetting his feet caused him to take cold; the place felt to him chilly and damp after the palace; he rapidly became worse, and in a short time, in spite of all the doctors' care, he died. "Where is our friend the Shepherd?" asked the Rajah, a few days afterward; "he surely could not have caught cold merely by treading on the marble floor you had caused to be sprinkled with water?"

"Alas!" answered the Wuzeer, "the result was more disastrous than I had antic.i.p.ated; the poor Shepherd caught cold and is dead. Having been lately accustomed to overmuch care, the sudden change of temperature killed him.

"You see now to what dangers we are exposed from which the poor are exempt. It is thus that Nature equalizes her best gifts; wealth and opulence tend too frequently to destroy health and shorten life, though they may give much enjoyment to it whilst it lasts."

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

IX.

_PANCH-PHUL RANEE._

A certain Rajah had two wives, of whom he preferred the second to the first; the first Ranee had a son, but, because he was not the child of the second Ranee, his father took a great dislike to him, and treated him so harshly that the poor boy was very unhappy.

One day, therefore, he said to his mother: "Mother, my father does not care for me, and my presence is only a vexation to him. I should be happier anywhere than here; let me therefore go and seek my fortune in other lands."

So the Ranee asked her husband if he would allow their son to travel.

He said, "The boy is free to go, but I don't see how he is to live in any other part of the world, for he is too stupid to earn his living, and I will give him no money to squander on senseless pleasures." Then the Ranee told her son that he had his father's permission to travel, and said to him, "You are going out into the world now to try your luck; take with you the food and clothes I have provided for your journey." And she gave him a bundle of clothes and several small loaves, and in each loaf she placed a gold mohur, that on opening it, he might find money as well as food inside; and he started on his journey.

When the young Rajah had traveled a long way, and left his father's kingdom far behind, he one day came upon the outskirts of a great city, where (instead of taking the position due to his rank, and sending to inform the Rajah of his arrival) he went to a poor Carpenter's house, and begged of him a lodging for the night. The Carpenter was busy making wooden clogs in the porch of his house, but he looked up and nodded, saying, "Young man, you are welcome to any a.s.sistance a stranger may need and we can give. If you are in want of food, you will find my wife and daughter in the house: they will be happy to cook for you." The Rajah went inside and said to the Carpenter's daughter, "I am a stranger, and have traveled a long way; I am both tired and hungry: cook me some dinner as fast as you can, and I will pay you for your trouble." She answered, "I would willingly cook you some dinner at once, but I have no wood to light the fire, and the jungle is some way off." "It matters not," said the Rajah; "this will do to light the fire, and I'll make the loss good to your father;" and taking a pair of new clogs which the Carpenter had just finished making, he broke them up and lighted the fire with them.

Next morning he went into the jungle, cut wood, and, having made a pair of new clogs--better than those with which he had lighted the fire the evening before--placed them with the rest of the goods for sale in the Carpenter's shop. Shortly afterward, one of the servants of the Rajah of that country came to buy a pair of clogs for his master, and seeing these new ones, said to the Carpenter, "Why, man, these clogs are better than all the rest put together. I will take none other to the Rajah. I wish you would always make such clogs as these." And throwing down ten gold mohurs on the floor of the hut, he took up the clogs and went away.

The Carpenter was much surprised at the whole business. In the first place, he usually received only two or three rupees for each pair of clogs; and in the second, he knew that these which the Rajah's servant had judged worth ten gold mohurs had not been made by him; and how they had come there he could not think, for he felt certain they were not with the rest of the clogs the night before. He thought and thought, but the more he thought about the matter the more puzzled he got, and he went to talk about it to his wife and daughter. Then his daughter said, "Oh, those must have been the clogs the stranger made!"

And she told her father how he had lighted the fire the night before with two of the clogs which were for sale, and had afterward fetched wood from the jungle and made another pair to replace them.

The Carpenter at this news was more astonished than ever, and he thought to himself, "Since this stranger seems a quiet, peaceable sort of man, and can make clogs so well, it is a great pity he should leave this place: he would make a good husband for my daughter;" and, catching hold of the young Rajah, he propounded his scheme to him.

(But all this time he had no idea that his guest was a Rajah.)

Now the Carpenter's daughter was a very pretty girl--as pretty as any Ranee you ever saw; she was also good-tempered, clever, and could cook extremely well. So when the Carpenter asked the Rajah to be his son-in-law, he looked at the father, the mother and the girl, and thinking to himself that many a better man had a worse fate, he said, "Yes, I will marry your daughter, and stay here and make clogs." So the Rajah married the Carpenter's daughter.

This Rajah was very clever at making all sorts of things in wood. When he had made all the clogs he wished to sell next day, he would amuse himself in making toys; and in this way he made a thousand wooden parrots. They were as like real parrots as possible. They had each two wings, two legs, two eyes and a sharp beak. And when the Rajah had finished them all, he painted and varnished them and put them one afternoon outside the house to dry.

Night came on, and with it came Parb.u.t.tee and Mahdeo,[67] flying round the world to see the different races of men. Amongst the many places they visited was the city where the Carpenter lived; and in the garden in front of the house they saw the thousand wooden parrots which the Rajah had made and painted and varnished, all placed out to dry. Then Parb.u.t.tee turned to Mahdeo, and said, "These parrots are very well made--they need nothing but life. Why should not we give them life?"

Mahdeo answered, "What would be the use of that? It would be a strange freak, indeed!" "Oh," said Parb.u.t.tee, "I only meant you to do it as an amus.e.m.e.nt. It would be so funny to see the wooden parrots flying about! But do not do it if you don't like." "You would like it then?"

answered Mahdeo. "Very well, I will do it." And he endowed the thousand parrots with life.

[67] The G.o.d Mahdeo is an incarnation of Siva the Destroyer. The G.o.ddess Parb.u.t.tee is his wife.

Parb.u.t.tee and Mahdeo then flew away.

Next morning the Rajah got up early to see if the varnish he had put on the wooden parrots was dry; but no sooner did he open the door than--marvel of marvels!--the thousand wooden parrots all came walking into the house, flapping their wings and chattering to each other.

Hearing the noise, the Carpenter and the Carpenter's wife and daughter came running out to see what was the matter, and were not less astonished than the Rajah himself at the miracle which had taken place. Then the Carpenter's wife turned to her son-in-law, and said, "It is all very well that you should have made these wooden parrots; but I don't know where we are to find food for them! Great, strong parrots like these will eat not less than a pound of rice a-piece every day. Your father-in-law and I cannot afford to procure as much as that for them in this poor house. If you wish to keep them, you must live elsewhere, for we cannot provide for you all."

"Very well," said the Rajah; "you shall not have cause to accuse me of ruining you, for from henceforth I will have a house of my own." So he and his wife went to live in a house of their own, and he took the thousand parrots with him, and his mother-in-law gave her daughter some corn and rice and money to begin housekeeping with. Moreover, he found that the parrots, that instead of being an expense, were the means of increasing his fortune; for they flew away every morning early to get food, and spent the whole day out in the fields; and every evening, when they returned home, each parrot brought in his beak a stalk of corn or rice, or whatever it had found good to eat. So that their master was regularly supplied with more food than enough; and what with selling what he did not require, and working at his trade, he soon became quite a rich carpenter.

After he had been living in this way very happily for some time, one night, when he fell asleep, the Rajah dreamed a wonderful dream, and this was the dream:

He thought that very, very far away beyond the Red Sea was a beautiful kingdom surrounded by seven other seas; and that it belonged to a Rajah and Ranee who had one lovely daughter, named Panch-Phul Ranee (the Five Flower Queen), after whom the whole kingdom was called Panch-Phul Ranee's country; and that this Princess lived in the centre of her father's kingdom, in a little house round which were seven wide ditches, and seven great hedges made of spears; and that she was called Panch-Phul Ranee because she was so light and delicate that she weighed no more than five white lotus flowers! Moreover, he dreamed that this Princess had vowed to marry no one who could not cross the seven seas, and jump the seven ditches, and seven hedges made of spears.

After dreaming this the young Rajah awoke, and feeling much puzzled, got up, and sitting with his head in his hands, tried to think the matter over and discover if he had ever heard anything like his dream before; but he could make nothing of it.

Whilst he was thus thinking, his wife awoke and asked him what was the matter. He told her, and she said, "That is a strange dream. If I were you, I'd ask the old parrot about it; he is a wise bird, and perhaps he knows." This parrot of which she spoke was the most wise of all the thousand wooden parrots. The Rajah took his wife's advice, and when all the birds came home that evening, he called the old parrot and told him his dream, saying, "Can this be true?" To which the parrot replied, "It is all true. The Panch-Phul Ranee's country lies beyond the Red Sea, and is surrounded by seven seas, and she dwells in a house built in the centre of her father's kingdom. Round her house are seven ditches, and seven hedges made of spears, and she has vowed not to marry any man who cannot jump these seven ditches and seven hedges; and because she is very beautiful many great and n.o.ble men have tried to do this, but in vain.

"The Rajah and Ranee, her father and mother, are very fond of her and proud of her. Every day she goes to the palace to see them, and they weigh her in a pair of scales. They put her in one scale and five lotus flowers in the other, and she's so delicate and fragile she weighs no heavier than the five little flowers, so they call her the Panch-Phul Ranee. Her father and mother are very proud of this."

"I should like to go to that country and see the Panch-Phul Ranee,"

said the Rajah; "but I don't know how I could cross the seven seas."

"I will show you how to manage that," replied the old parrot. "I and another parrot will fly close together, I crossing my left over his right wing; so that we will move along as if we were one bird (using only our outside wings to fly with), and on the chair made of our interlaced wings you shall sit, and we will carry you safely across the seven seas. On the way we will every evening alight in some high tree and rest, and every morning we can go on again." "That sounds a good plan; I have a great desire to try it," said the Rajah. "Wife, what should you think of my going to the Panch-Phul Ranee's country, and seeing if I can jump the seven ditches, and seven hedges made of spears? Will you let me try?"

"Yes," she answered. "If you like to go and marry her, go; only take care that you do not kill yourself; and mind you come back some day."

And she prepared food for him to take with him, and took off her gold and silver bangles, which she placed in a bundle of warm things, that he might be in need neither of money nor clothes on the journey. He then charged the nine hundred and ninety-eight parrots he left behind him to bring her plenty of corn and rice daily (that she might never need food while he was away), and took her to the house of her father, in whose care she was to remain during his absence; and he wished her good-bye, saying, "Do not fear but that I will come back to you, even if I do win the Panch-Phul Ranee, for you will always be my first wife, though you are the Carpenter's daughter."

The old parrot and another parrot then spread their wings, on which the Rajah seated himself as on a chair, and rising up in the air, they flew away with him out of sight.

Far, far, far they flew, as fast as parrots can fly, over hills, over forests, over rivers, over valleys, on, on, on, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, only staying to rest every night when it got too dark to see where they were going. At last they reached the seven seas which surrounded the Panch-Phul Ranee's country. When once they began crossing the seas they could not rest (for there was neither rock nor island on which to alight), so they were obliged to fly straight across them, night and day, until they gained the sh.o.r.e.

By reason of this the parrots were too exhausted on their arrival to go as far as the city where the Rajah, Panch-Phul Ranee's father, lived, but they flew down to rest on a beautiful banyan tree, which grew not far from the sea, close to a small village. The Rajah determined to go into the village and get food and shelter there. He told the parrots to stay in the banyan tree till his return; then, leaving his bundle of clothes and most of his money in their charge, he set off on foot toward the nearest house.

After a little while he reached a Malee's cottage, and giving a gold mohur to the Malee's wife, got her to provide him with food and shelter for the night.

Next morning he rose early, and said to his hostess, "I am a stranger here, and know nothing of the place. What is the name of your country?" "This," she said, "is Panch-Phul Ranee's country."

"And what is the last news in your town?" he asked. "Very bad news indeed," she replied. "You must know our Rajah has one only daughter--a most beautiful Princess--and her name is Panch-Phul Ranee, for she is so light and delicate that she weighs no heavier than five lotus flowers. After her this whole country is called Panch-Phul Ranee's country. She lives in a small bungalow[68] in the centre of the city you see yonder; but, unluckily for us, she has vowed to marry no man who cannot jump on foot over the seven hedges made of spears, and across the seven great ditches that surround her house. This cannot be done, Babamah![69] I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of Rajahs have tried to do it and died in the attempt! Yet the Princess will not break her vow. Daily, worse and worse tidings come from the city of fresh people having been killed in trying to jump the seven hedges and seven ditches, and I see no end to the misfortunes that will arise from it. Not only are so many brave men lost to the world, but, since the Princess will marry no one who does not succeed in this, she stands a chance of not marrying at all; and if that be so, when the Rajah dies there will be no one to protect her and claim the right to succeed to the throne. All the n.o.bles will probably fight for the Raj, and the whole kingdom be turned topsy-turvy."

[68] House.

[69] Oh, my child.

"Mahi,"[70] said the Rajah, "if that is all there is to do, I will try and win your Princess, for I can jump right well."

[70] Woman or mother.