pear.

[6] Still the name of Marwar.

So as he drew near it, he saw a crowd upon its wall. And when he was
distant from it but a little way, suddenly its great gate's mouth was
thrown open, and a stream of people shot from it like a long tongue, and
rapidly came towards him, so that he said to himself: Ha! then, as it
seems, I am expected by the citizens of this delightful city, who are as
eager to come to me as I am to get to them. And they came closer,
clamouring and buzzing as it were like bees; and he looked and lo! they
were all women, and there was not a man among them all. And as he
wondered, they ran up, and reached him, and threw themselves upon him
like a wave of the sea, laughing and crying, and drowning him in their
embraces: and they took him as it were captive, and swept him away
towards the city, all talking at once, and deafening him with their
joyful exclamations, paying not the least attention to anything that he
tried to say. And Aja let himself go, carried away by all those women
like a leaf in a rushing stream. And he said to himself, in
astonishment: What is this great wonder? For all these women fight for
me, as if they had never seen a man in their lives before. Where then
can the men be, to whom they must belong? Or can it be, that I have come
to a city composed of women without a man? Have I escaped the desert,
only to be drowned in a sea of women? For what is the use of a single
man, in an ocean of the other sex? Or are they dragging me away to offer
me up to the Mother[7], having sacrificed all their own husbands
already? Or have I really died in the desert, and is all this only a
dream of the other world? Can these be the heavenly Apsarases, come in a
body to fetch me away, as if I had fallen in battle? Surely they are,
for some of them are sufficiently beautiful even for Indra's hall. And
anyhow, it is better to be torn to pieces by beautiful women, even if
there are far too many, than to die in the desert, all alone.

[7] Durga or Parwati.

So as they bore him along, chattering on like jays and cranes, he said
again to the women next him: Fair ones, who are you, and where are you
taking me, and why in the world are you so greatly delighted to see me?
And then at last, they replied: O handsome stranger, ask nothing: very
soon thou shalt know all, for we are carrying thee away to our King. And
Aja said to himself: Ha! So, then, there is a King. These women have,
after all, a King.