70 ww | The Three Princes and

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governors and judges of towns, and the Brahmins most celebrated

for their learning, were obliged to be present; and some lived

so far off that they were four months in coming. This assembly,

composed of innumerable multitudes of Indians, met in a plain

of vast extent, as far as the eye could reach. In the centre of

this plain was a square of great length and breadth, closed on

one side by a large scaffolding of nine stories, supported by forty *
pillars, raised for the king and his court, and those strangers whom

he admitted to audience once a week. Inside, it was adorned and.
furnished magnificently; and on the outside were painted fine land-

scapes, wherein all sorts of beasts, birds, and insects, even flies

and gnats, were drawn as naturally as possible. Other scaffolds of

at least four or five ‘stories, and painted almost all alike, formed

the other three sides.

On each side of the square, at some little distance from each
other, were ranged a thousand elephants, sumptuously harnessed,
each having upon his back a square wooden castle, finely gilt,
in which were musicians and actors. The trunks, ears, and bodies
of these elephants: were painted with cinnabar and other colours,
_ representing grotesque figures.

- But what Prince Houssain most of all admired was to see the
largest of these elephants stand with his four feet on a post fixed into
the earth, two feet high, playing and beating time with his trunk
to the music. ' Besidés this, he admired another elephant as big,
standing on a board, which was laid across a, strong beam about .
ten feet high, with a great weight at the other end which balanced
him, while he kept time with ie music > by the motions of his Poy
and trunk.

Prince Houssain might lide made a longer stay in “the kingdom
and court of Bisnagar, where he would have seen other wonders, till
the last day of the year, whereon he and his brothers. had appointed
' to meet. But he was so well satisfied with what he hag. seen, pane. his