The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-05-22

| river magnificent castle with cOlonnade
| of sandal wood, and in which resounded
the voices of seven Brahminesses. They
sang the combat of Ravana and Rama, &C
| companying themselves on the Gin. They
| called him by his own name and invited
| him by gesture to cross over the river
| Ajeeb thought: II will lose too much time
| in crossing the river" And Ajeeb left the
| BrahminesSes alone.
He met jemadar, who said to him:
| 'Ajeeb, if you are hungry and thirsty,
come to my cabin home down yonder, the
waterfall of Flora. l shall give you dish
| of tomatoes and red beets piece of bears
ham and cup of delicious wampi."
| ''Do you take me for fool!' answered
| Ajeeb; edo you believe l will waste my
| life in loading my head and my stomach!
| There is a beggar passing; he is hungry and
thirsty; make him eat and drink in my
place and accept this gold piece"
Two bayaderes, wandering minstrel
and a banjo player, seeing the generosity
of Ajeeb, asked from him the gift Of an
| ounce of gold, offering in exchange to sing
and dance the celebrated idyl of Ginta
| Govinta on the love of Krishma (the Hin
doc Apollo and Radha. Ajeeb gave them
| the ounce of gold asked, and said to the
bayaderes that the love of Krishma had
| fructified India, and also that the history
of love of the god and Radha was too long
to be listened to by an agonizing man.
| Meanwhile Ajeeb noticed that by refusing
al IuOSe oHerS ne was losing great zeal
| more than by accepting them, but the idea
of being near his dissolution upset his
reasoning He felt no inclination towards
any thing. Ajeeb at the second hour of
his life: was bothered to death.
"Brahmaln exclaimed he, yawning CON
| vulslvely. "Brahmal how long is lifei l
| am not astonished if thou hast incarnated
myself ten-fold in order to kill time"
! This exclamation uttered, Ajeeb felt his
mind somewhat relieved. He had arrived
before the temple of Ten Tauli, which has
| two porticos, and is quoted as one of the
marvels of Flora. He sat down on the tail
| of monkey, in the shadow of the OK
Mandy, both animals cut out of block in
| a quarry of granite, and lazily he ate few
betel nuts His glances, thrown obliquely
| towards heaven, revealed to him a painful
| thing; Ajeeb had to pass only twenty
hours more on this earth before being
| struck on the forehead by the black Yama
the god of funerals.
| Then he adopted the last resource Of
| those that tediousness kills-he stretched
himself on the sand and fell asleep, and
| had a beautiful dream. He believed he
| saw, or better, he did see, Budrah, the god
] of death, opening for him the blue gates of
| the magnificent palace Kailaca, whose por-
| ticos, made of precious stones, conduct to
the Garden Mendana, inhabited by baya-
deres silva, the most powerful of all the
| gods, said to him:
| AJe6D, us you nave D6eu JuSU anu CDarl-
| table, | will reward you. l make you King
| of the Maldive Islands; they are twelve
thousand in number, and are situated at
the entrance of the Arabic gulf. All of
them have caves of pearls and coral, in
| each one is queen, handsome as Latch
| NEE, the goddess of pleasure. These twelve
| thousand queens shall be your wives, and
and you shall have floating harem more
| beautiful than the one of the great Sevadjy,
| the father of the Mahratta's empire" In
| his dream Ajeeb came down from Heaven
| through stair Of gold and indigo When
| he arrived below the region of clouds he
| discovered his kingdom, that resembled
| twelve thousand shells, resting on the sur
| face of the sea under numberless eyrets of
| palm trees. Landing it seemed to him
| that the Orient sang heavenly symphony
| by dividing itself twelve thousand-fold in
| streams of joyous and bright azure. With
the SwlftneSs of motion given by dreams
Ajeeb went from one island to another, and
in each of them he saw glittering two large
eyes under the ringlets of head of hair
black as ebony and face sweet and gilded
as Radha's.
Dreams are mysterious things which
cause us to forget the hour and space, so
Ajeeb awaking had in his remembrance
several years of happiness passed with his
twelve thousand queens in the Arabian
gulf among pearl, coral, amber and gold;
he found himself in the shadow of the OK
Mandy before the temple of Flora. Ac-
cording to his astronomical observat atoms
he had slept eight hours, and but for a hid
eous serpent that bit him he would have
added many years to his fantastica1 happi-
ness in the Maldive Islands.
Signing, Ajeeb said to himself: 81 have
but twelve hours to live, and swear that
l am exceedingly embarrassed with my ex-
lStence. | have twelve centuries before me.
If twas not through fear to displease silva,
!! would go and throw myself on the rock
down below, in order to be relieved from
the burden of those twelve hours, which are
killing me under their weight At least, if
l could sleep again until the end of my
days, that will come with the next sun, /
would see again my kingdom and my ha-
rem of queens in the mirror of the gulf but
alas when the natural need of sleep will
return to me / shall be dead! Obi it is
surely now that understand the mysteries
of our life! We experience only contested
pleasures lasting few minutes and uncon-
tested troubles and sorrows, lasting forev-
err The best part of our life is the sleeping
one. If the celestial India, if the blue god
granted me third life, would accept it,
solely on the condition of sleeping always"
As he finished his monologue, taking care
to pronounce it syllable by syllable, with
an affected slowliness for the purpose of
gaining few minutes on the eternal twelve
hours forming the balance of his existence
he saw the bonze of the great pagoda of
WIN ueSCtnueu from his
elephant to kneel before the temple of Des
Arantara or Ten lncarnations. The bonze
of Nagpur was named Dhealy; he had left
Bherar, the rich capital, with his retinue of
Jemadars of both sexes, to visit the PENN
sula of Bengal; he wanted to meet and con-
quer the most renowned chess players of
Hindostan. Ajeeb Frustrated himself be-
fore him and said Ray of the Seventh
head of silva, you who are present in the
councils of India, and who has rendered
harmless the anger of Ananta, the eternal
serpent, teach me the secret of passing ten
hours without being devoured by tedious
nessn
"Do you ask the aim of a distraction
from me.n replied the bonze.
II ask it on my knees, Scar of Nagpur,"
answered Ajeeb.
'Shegmadid, the glorious architect of the
temples of Flora, who has been raised to
the dignity of god, and who travels the
blue armament on the chariot of Suriah,
has commanded the bronzes to give aims
to the poor" said Dhealy. "Obeying his
orders, | consent to play five games of
chess with you, that is to say, will give
you ten hours of voluptuousness to render
jealous the chaste goddess Sista."
Ajeeb opened wide his big, black eyes
astonishment. He thought the remedy
great deal worse than the disease and NUT
tered some unintelligible words that the
bonZe interpreted as no expression of deep
gratitude for the pleasure promised. Ajeeb
sperhaps the only Hindoo in this learned
century that did not know how to play
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