tions. Here the fourth
pearl dropped and the owner discovered a mine of diamonds and other
gems, but the ground was covered with snakes, cockatrices, and the most
venomous serpents. On seeing this he determines to return and share the
produce of the third companion's gold mine; but when he comes to the
spot he can find no trace of the mine or of the owner. Proceeding next
to the silver mine, he finds it is exhausted, and his friend who owned
it has gone; so he will now content himself with copper; but, alas! his
first friend had died the day before his arrival, and strangers were now
in possession of the mine, who laughed at his pretensions, and even beat
him for his impertinence. Sad at heart, he journeys on to where he and
his companions had met the Brahman, but he had long since departed to a
far distant country; and thus, through his obstinacy and avarice, he was
overwhelmed with poverty and disgrace--without money and without
friends.

[50] That is, hell. Properly, it is Je-Hinnon, near
Jerusalem, which seems to have been in ancient times the
cremation ground for human corpses.

* * * * *

This story of the Four Treasure-seekers forms the third of Book V of the
_Panchatantra_, where the fourth companion, instead of finding a diamond
mine guarded by serpents, etc., discovers a man with a wheel upon his
head, and on his asking this man where he could procure water, who he
was, and why he stood with the wheel on his head, straightway the wheel
is transferred to his own head, as had been the case of the former
victim who had asked the same questions of his predecessor. The third
man, who had found the gold mine, wondering that his companion tarried
so long, sets off in search of him, and, finding him with the wheel on
his head, asks why he stood thus. The fourth acquaints him of the
property of the wheel, and then relates a number of stories to show that
those who want common sense will surely come to grief.

It is more than probable that several of the tales and apologues in the
_Panchatantra_ were derived from Buddhist sources; and the incident of a
man with a wheel on his head is found in the Chinese-Sanskrit work
entitled _Fu-pen-hing-tsi-king_, which Wassiljew translates 'Biography
of Sakyamuni and his Companions,' and of which Dr. Beal has published an
abridged English translation under the title of the _Romantic History of
Buddha_. In this work (p. 342 ff.) a