ess, which is sometimes made to Yudishthira
under the title of Bharata, i. e. descendant of Bharata, or other
appellations.]

[Footnote 18: p. 4. l. 15. _There the swans he saw disporting_. In
the original this is a far less poetic bird, and the author must crave
forgiveness for having turned his geese into swans. If, however, we
are to believe Bohlen, in his learned work, Das Alte Indien, the
translators are altogether mistaken; they have been misled by the
similarity of the word Hansa to Gans--a goose. The original, he
asserts, to mean a mythic bird, closely resembling the swan, or
perhaps the tall and brilliant flamingo, which Southey has introduced
with such effect in one of his rich descriptions in the Curse of
Kehama. The goose, however, according to the general opinion, is so
common in Indian mythology, that this must be received with much
caution. In the modern Tamulic version of the story, translated by Mr.
Kindersley, are substituted, "Milk white Aunnays, descending from the
skies, like an undulating garland of pearls." The Aunnays are supposed
to be a sort of birds of paradise. They are represented as milk white;
remarkable for the gracefulness of their walk; and endowed with
considerable gifts. Mr. Wilson, in his Meghaduta, has given me a
precedent for the change of geese into swans; see p. 27, v. 71, with
the note. And Mr. Ellis, Asiatic Researches, vol. xiv. p. 29, has the
following note on the subject: "There are three distinctions of Hamsa;
the Raja-hamsa, with a milk-white body and deep red beak and legs,
this is the Phenicopteros, or flamingo; the Mallicacsha-hamsa, with
brownish beak and legs; and the Dhartarashtra-hamsa, with black beak
and legs: the latter is the European swan, the former a variety. The
gait of an elegant woman is compared by the Hindu poets to the proud
bearing of a swan in the water. Sonnerat, making a mistake similar to
that in the text, translates a passage in which this allusion occurs,
in words to the following purport, 'Her gait resembled that of a
goose.' Other writers have fallen into the same error." The swans, ou
Plutot les Genies ailes, play the same part in an extract from the
Harivansa, translated by M. Langlois, in his Monumens Litteraires de
l'Inde, _Paris_, 1827, p. 158. The first part of the Harivansa has
just appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Translation
Committee.]

[Footnote 19: p. 5. l. 4. _Like the Aswinas in beauty_. See Asiatic
Researches, i. 2