y.' The sages, hearing
this, consulted, and together rubbed the thigh of the king (Vena), who had
left no offspring, to produce a son. From the thigh, thus rubbed, came
forth a being of the complexion of a charred stake, with flattened
features like a negro, and of dwarfish stature. 'What am I to do,' cried
he eagerly to the Munis. 'Sit down (nishida),' said they. And thence his
name was Nishada. His descendants, the inhabitants of the Vindhya
mountain, great Muni, are still called Nishadas and are characterized by
the exterior tokens of depravity." Professor Wilson adds, in his note on
the passage: "The Matsya says that there were born outcast or barbarous
races, Mlechchhas, as black as collyrium. The Bhagavata describes an
individual of dwarfish stature, with short arms and legs, of a complexion
as black as a crow, with projecting chin, broad flat nose, red eyes, and
tawny hair, whose descendants were mountaineers and foresters. The Padma
(Bhumi Khanda) has a similar deccription; adding to the dwarfish stature
and black complexion, a wide mouth, large ears, and a protuberant belly.
It also particularizes his posterity as Nishadas, Kiratas, Bhillas, and
other barbarians and Mlechchhas, living in woods and on mountains. These
passages intend, and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the
Gonds, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the
forests and mountains of Central India from Behar to Khandesh, and who
are, not improbably, the predecessors of the present occupants of the
cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black,
ill-shapen, and dwarfish, and have countenances of a very African
character."

Manu gives a different origin of the Nishadas as the offspring of a
Brahman father and a Sudra mother. See Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, Vol. I. p.
481.

Page 157.

_Beneath a fig-tree's mighty shade,_
_With countless pendent shoots displayed._
"So counselled he, and both together went
Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
The fig-tree: not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day, to Indians known,
In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillared shade
High overarched, and echoing walks between."

_Paradise Lost_, Book IX.

Page 161.

_Now, Lakshman, as our cot is made,_
_Must sacrifice be duly paid._

The rites pe