ning place and it grew up and flourished. And there was a boy
of the cowherd caste who used to graze his cattle about that place;
he saw his goats greedily eating the tobacco leaf and he wondered
what the leaf was and tasted a bit but finding it bitter he spat it
out. Some time after however he had tooth-ache and having tried many
remedies in vain he bethought himself of the bitter tobacco and he
chewed some of that and kept it in his mouth and found that it cured
the tooth-ache; from that time he formed the habit of chewing it. One
day he saw some burnt bones or lime and he picked up the powder and
rubbed it between his fingers to see what it was and after doing so he
ate some tobacco and found that the taste was improved, so from that
time he always chewed lime with the tobacco. He recommended the leaf
to other men who had tooth-ache and they formed the habit of chewing
it too and called it tobacco; and then men who had no tooth-ache took
to it; and acquired a craving for it. This is the way tobacco chewing
began, as our forefathers say.

CLXIV. The Transmigration of Souls.

All the cats of Hindus have believed and believe, and the Santals also
have said and say, that Thakur made the land and sky and sea and man
and animals and insects and fish and the creation was complete and
final: he made their kinds and castes once for all and did not alter
them afterwards; and he fixed the time of growth and of dwelling in
the body; and for the flowers to seed and he made at that time as
many souls as was necessary and the same souls go on being incarnated
sometimes in a human body and sometimes in the body of an animal;
and so it is that many human beings really have the souls of animals;
if a man has a man's soul he is of a gentle disposition; but if he gets
the soul of a dog or cat then he is bad tempered and ready to quarrel
with everyone; and the man with a frog's soul is silent and sulky and
those who get tiger's souls when they start a quarrel never give up
till they gain their point. There is a story which proves all this.

There was once a Brahman who had two wives and as he knew something
of herbs and simples he used to leave his wives at home and go about
the country as a quack doctor; but whenever he came home his two wives
used to scold him and find fault with him for no reason at all till
they made his life a burden. So he resolved to leave two such shrews
and one day when they had been scolding as usual he