I can see my
ancestors, wringing their hands for grief: knowing well, that as soon as
I myself am dead, it is all over with their race. For who will offer
them water, since the fatal beauty of my only daughter has set a term to
my ancient line?

[10] It may not be superfluous to remind the English
reader, that, according to Hindoo ideas, there is no
disgrace like that of possessing an unmarried daughter.
Hence the practice, among the Rajpoots and adjacent
peoples, of destroying the female infants, to avoid it.

[11] Intending, of course, a son. Unfortunately he employed
a word of indeterminate gender: hence the lamentable
_denouement_. For in ancient India, as in ancient Rome, the
_spoken word_, the letter, determined everything.

[12] Nothing in Hindoo mythology is more absurd than the
implacable fury of the most holy men for the most trifling
slights, unless it be the accuracy with which their most
dreadful imprecations are literally fulfilled. This was, I
believe, characteristic also of the saints of Erin.

[13] An English lady having called, not long ago, at the
house of a Hindoo lady, to enquire how she was, after an
interesting event, and _what was the result_, received for
answer: Alas, _memsahib, nothing at all_: a girl. Had she
been a partisan of "woman's rights," she would probably
never have recovered from the shock.

[14] A play on words, not transferable to English.

[15] It is a very bad omen, in India, for a vulture to
settle on a house.

[16] A female vulture. I retain the original word, because
it seems to be peculiarly expressive of the thing.

So as Aja stood, lost in wonder at the old King's story, his daughter
suddenly rose to her feet with a shrill cry. And she exclaimed: O son of
a King, fly quickly! Hence! away! back with thee even into the desert,
and leave me and my father and this miserable city to our inevitable
fate. And she sank down in a swoon, and would have fallen to the ground,
but that Aja sprang quickly forward and caught her as she fell.

So as he stood, holding her in his arms, and wishing that her swoon
might last for ever, so only that he held her, for she stole away his
senses with the seduction of her fragrance and proximity, her father
exclaimed, in dismay: Ha! this is something new, and a thing that has
never occurred before. And what can be the matter now? O son of a King!
she must have f