Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MONKEY ViR. [1] YN the modern province of Oudh there was in Jt ancient time a powerful kingdom,called Ayodhyd. It was beautiful and fertile, watered by many rivers and rivulets ; its people were happy and rich, ruled by the benign Solar Princes. Of all the kings of the great Solar Dynasty, Raja Dafaratha was the mightiest and the best. He was invincible in arms and unequalled in alms. The people of Ayodhya were very happy to live under his kind sway ; but the king himself was not happy. He had three good wives, named Kauqalyd, Kaikeyi and Sumitra, but none of them gave birth to a prince,who could ascend the throne of the great kingdom and rule the people, as only the Solar princes knew how to do. The people prayed and the king offered sacrifices to the gods, but time wore on and no prince was born, Once on a time king Daaratha went out a- hunting; he saw a stag, put spurs to his horse and pursued him. Soon his escorts were left behind and he disappeared into the deep forest. He at last found himself unattended and alone, the stag having disappeared from his view. He advanced and found a beautiful rivulet gliding fast; he thought he saw the stag; he aimed and shot. "Oh, I am killed !" was uttered by the faltering voice of a boy ; the king was surprised and bewildered ; he ran to the place from which the piteous cry arose. What was his horror when he found that his deadly arrow had pierced the heart of a beautiful boy ! He took up the boy on his lap ; he tried to bind up the wound, from which hot blood was flowing like water ; he tried a hundred means to save the boy, but all was to no effect. The boy slowly raised up his head and said, "My parents are blind and old. They are fasting from yesterday and they are thirsty. Oh Sir, kindly take this pitcher of wa...