94                         ALBERUNTS INDIA.

great deed, who pointed out to the angels the beauty of
the crowns, and made the ocean and the mountain
Vindhya a treasure-house for them !

V. 7.—That is Suhail, by whom the water becomes
clean from earthly defilement, with which the purity of
the heart of the pious man is commingled, clean, I say
from that which overpowers him in the intercourse
with the wicked.

V. 8.—Whenever Agastya rises and the water in¬
creases in the rivers and valleys during his time, you
see the rivers offering to the moon all that is on the
surface of their water, the various kinds of white and
red lotus and the papyrus; all that swims in them, the
ducks and the geese (pelicans ?), as a sacrifice unto him,
even as a young girl offers roses and presents when she
enters them (the rivers).

V. 9.—We compare the standing of the pairs of red
geese on the two shores, and the swimming to and fro
of the white ducks in the midst while they sing, to the
two lips of a beautiful woman, showing her teeth when
she laughs for joy.

V. 10.—Nay, we compare the black lotus, standing
between white lotus, and the dashing of the bees against
it from desire of the fragrancy of its smell, with the
black of her pupil within the white of the ring, moving
coquettishly and amorously, being surrounded by the
hair of the eyebrows.

V. 11.—When you then see the ponds, when the light
of the moon has risen over them, when the moon illu¬
minates their dim waters, and when the white lotus
opens which was shut over the bees, you would think
them the face of a beautiful woman, who looks with a
black eye from a white eyeball.

V. 12.—When a stream of the torrents of Varshakala
has flown to them with serpents, poison, and the impu¬
rities, the rising of Suhail above them cleans them from
defilement and saves them from injury.