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raiment simply neat,

      And winning manners soft and sweet.

      The twice-born sages, whose delight

      Was Scripture’s page and holy rite,

      Their calm and settled course pursued,

      Nor sought the menial multitude.

      In many a Scripture each was versed,

      And each the flame of worship nursed,

      And gave with lavish hand.

      Each paid to Heaven the offerings due,

      And none was godless or untrue

      In all that holy band.

      To Bráhmans, as the laws ordain,

      The Warrior caste were ever fain

      The reverence due to pay;

      And these the Vaiśyas’ peaceful crowd,

      Who trade and toil for gain, were proud

      To honour and obey;

      Who never from their duty swerved,

      Their proper worship all addressed

      To Bráhman, spirits, God, and guest.

      Pure and unmixt their rites remained,

      Cheered by his grandsons, sons, and wife,

      Each passed a long and happy life.

      Thus was that famous city held

      By one who all his race excelled,

      Blest in his gentle reign,

      As the whole land aforetime swayed

      By Manu, prince of men, obeyed

      Her king from main to main.

      And heroes kept her, strong and brave,

      As lions guard their mountain cave:

      Fierce as devouring flame they burned,

      And fought till death, but never turned.

      Horses had she of noblest breed,

      Like Indra’s for their form and speed,

      Her noble elephants had strayed

      Through Vindhyan and Himálayan shade,

      Gigantic in their bulk and height,

      Yet gentle in their matchless might.

      They rivalled well the world-spread fame

      Of the great stock from which they came,

      Of Váman, vast of size,

      Of Mahápadma’s glorious line,

      Upholders of the skies.

      With those, enrolled in fourfold class,

      Who all their mighty kin surpass,

      Whom men Matangas name,

      And Mrigas spotted black and white,

      And Bhadras of unwearied might,

      Ayodhyá for a league or more

      Cast a bright glory round,

      Where Daśaratha wise and great

      Governed his fair ancestral state,

      With every virtue crowned.

      Like Indra in the skies he reigned

      In that good town whose wall contained

      High domes and turrets proud,

      With gates and arcs of triumph decked,

      And sturdy barriers to protect

      Her gay and countless crowd.

      The Hebrew form is Hodda (Esther, I. 1.). In Zend it appears as Hendu in a somewhat wider sense. With the Persians later the signification of Hind seems to have co-extended with their increasing acquaintance with the country. The weak Ionic dialect omitted the Persian h, and we find in Hecatæus and Herodotus Ἴνδος and ἡ Ἰνδική. In this form the Romans received the names and transmitted them to us. The Arabian geographers in their ignorance that Hind and Sind are two forms of the same word have made of them two brothers and traced their decent from Noah. See Lassen’s Indische Alterthumskunde Vol. I. pp. 2, 3.

      Canto

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