ince becomes less and less able to repel
it.

The more popular belief regarding this range of sandstone hills at
Govardhan is that Lachhman, the brother of Rama, having been wounded
by Ravan, the demon king of Ceylon, his surgeon declared that his
wound could be cured only by a decoction of the leaves of a certain
tree, to be found in a certain hill in the Himalaya mountains.
Hanuman volunteered to go for it, but on reaching the place he found
that he had entirely forgotten the description of the tree required;
and, to prevent mistake, he took up the whole mountain upon his back,
and walked off with it to the plains. As he passed Govardhan, where
Bharat and Charat, the third and fourth brothers of Rama, then
reigned, he was seen by them.[22] It was night; and, thinking him a
strange sort of fish, Bharat let fly one of his arrows at him. It hit
him in the leg, and the sudden jerk caused this small fragment of his
huge burden to fall off. He called out in his agony, 'Ram, Ram', from
which they learned that he belonged to the army of their brother, and
let him pass on; but he remained lame for life from the wound. This
accounts very satisfactorily, according to popular belief, for the
halting gait of all the monkeys of that species;[23] those who are
descended lineally from the general inherit it, of course; and those
who are not, adopt it out of respect for his memory, as all the
soldiers of Alexander contrived to make one shoulder higher than the
other, because one of his happened to be so. When he passed,
thousands and tens of thousands of lamps were burning upon his
mountain, as the people remained entirely unconscious of the change,
and at their usual occupations. Hanuman reached Ceylon with his
mountain, the tree was found upon it, and Lachhman's wound cured.[24]

Govardhan is now within the boundary of our territory, and a native
collector resides here from Agra.[25]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. See note on Govardhan, _ante_, chapter 53, note 1.

3. _Ante_, chapter 9, note 8.

4. _Ante_, beginning of chapter 53.

5. This Hindoo version of the Massacre of the Innocents necessarily
recalls to mind the story in St. Matthew's Gospel. Numerous incidents
of the Gospel narrative, including the birth among the cattle, the
stable, the manger, and the imperial census, are repeated in the
Indian legends of Krishna. The exact channel of communication is not
known, but the intercourse between Alexandria and India