Above, the maiden sitteth,

A wondrous form and fair; With jewels bright she plaiteth Her shining golden hair: With comb of gold prepares it, The task with song beguiled; A fitful burden bears it

That melody so wild.

The boatman on the river

Lists to the song, spellbound; Oh, what shall him deliver

From danger threatening round? The waters deep have caught them, Both boat and boatman brave; "Tis Loreley's song hath brought them Beneath the foaming wave.

HINDU FOLK-LORE.

THE gods of the early Hindus were many.

One of the earlier Vedic poets enumerated thirty-three. A later poet places the number at three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine. Of these only a few of the more noted can be mentioned here.

The historic BUDDHA, Prince Siddartha, or Gautama, was a great reformer, who lived about five centuries before Christ. His teachings did not take deep root in his own country. His followers were driven to Ceylon, from which place the newer faith was propagated in China, and generally through eastern Asia, where it has degenerated into a debasing superstition.

Nor did the Mohammedan whirlwind succeed in overthrowing the ancient faith of the Brahmans. They to-day retain their old beliefs, little modified in the course of many centuries.

The student of Hindu mythology, as set forth in the sacred writings of India, will be puzzled to find that a large number of the gods are addressed individually, each as supreme, while the absence of any scale of comparison renders it difficult to say which is to be considered the greatest.

It is claimed that BRAHMA, the author of the universe, VISHNU, the preserver, and SIVA, or Seva, the destroyer, were originally considered but different manifestations of the one Supreme Being. Certainly this is the way in which they are now regarded.

So wisely taught the Indian seer;

Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,

Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear,
Are one, the same.

Take heart; the Waster builds again-
A charmed life old goodness hath;
The tares may perish, but the grain
Is not for death.

- Whittier's "The Reformer."

BRAHMA, the creator, is represented as a crowned, fourfaced, and four-handed human figure.

VISHNU, the preserver, is portrayed as a four-handed personage, wearing a tall crown.

SIVA, similar to the last named, is armed with a trident. The TRIMURTI is a representation of the Hindu Trinity -a combination of three heads and a single figure.

The AVATARS of Vishnu are the incarnations of the Divine Spirit on the earth. Of these there have been nine, among which Rama, Krishna, and Buddha are reckoned. There is to be yet one more incarnation, when Vishnu will appear, in the form of a winged horse, and the world will come to an end.

NARAYANA, the god of the seas, the mover of the waters, is the recipient of the greatest number of prayers of the old time, as preserved in the sacred books.

INDRA also holds a very high rank among the gods. He wields the thunderbolts, and sends the rains and the winds. GANESA, the son of Siva, is the god of wisdom. He has an elephant's head, and is attended by an enormous rat.

YAMA, or Yemen, is the death-god, judging the departed souls of men, and consigning the wicked to punishment in the serpent den of Naraka, while the good are sent to bliss in Svarga, the better world.

ENGHA is the boatman who transports the soul to paradise.

AGNI, the god of fire, is invoked for vengeance in war. KARTTIKEYA, the god of war, is depicted as riding upon a peacock, and flourishing weapons in his numerous hands.

love.

KAMADEVA, bearing his bow, like Cupid, is the god of

SHESHANAGA is a terrible black being, the king of serpents. He has a thousand crowned heads, with luminous eyes.

SURYA, the sun, appears in an equipage drawn by green horses driven by Arun, the light of morning.

CHANDRA, the moon, is a male figure, likewise drawn in a chariot, though its steeds are generally antelopes.

KASYAPA is addressed in very ancient hymns as the god of the skies. Numerous divinities of lower rank are men

tioned as his offspring.

PAVAN is the god of the winds.

AGNASTRA is the maker of the arrows of the gods.

KUBERA is the god of riches.

DURGA, the consort of Brahma, is a character of heroic virtue, and is represented as overcoming giants and demons of hideous and terrific form. She is more popularly known. as Saraswati.

MAHISHASURA is an impersonation of vice, and is represented as vanquished by Durga, the two being employed as symbols expressive of the moral conflict between good and evil.

PARVATI, the consort of Siva, is worshiped with disgusting rites of a depraved character.

LAKSHMI, the consort of Vishnu, is the patroness of agriculture, the emblem of abundance and fertility.

MARITALË is the patroness of the pariahs or outcasts.
DAHANA is the beautiful goddess of the dawn.
ADITI is the consort of Kasyapa.

SITA is the consort of the Avatar Rama.

BAYADERES are dancing girls of India. An old legend of the sixth Avatar relates the redemption of a dissolute girl of this class. It is the subject of a poem by Goethe, and of the opera by Auber, entitled The God and the Bayadere.

JAGANNATH, Juggernaut, or Jaga-naut ("Lord of the

World"), is an idol in the most celebrated of the Hindu temples-that of Orissa. His carriage, of pyramid form, is two hundred feet high. This is drawn through the streets on certain occasions by means of ropes grasped by great multitudes of pilgrims. In the press and excitement many have fallen under the fatal wheels and have been crushed to death. The popular opinion that these were voluntary victims, seeking eternal life through self-immolation, is declared to be erroneous.

From ancient times the Brahmans have taught the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls. Believing that the human soul passes from one bodily form to another, in all the range of the animal creation, the Hindus refrain from the use of flesh as food. They hold that the baser characters reappear in the lower animal forms, as a punishment for their sins, and that the basest are sometimes even imprisoned in vegetable or mineral forms. The final reward of the good is held to be their absorption into the divine soul of the universe, "as the water returns to the ocean." Buddha, it is said, "previously existed in four hundred millions of worlds. During these successive transmigrations he was almost every sort of fish, fly, animal, and man. He had acquired such a sanctity, millions of centuries before, as to permit him to enter Nirvâna, but he preferred to endure the curse of existence in order to benefit the race."

Discarding the old doctrine that the soul is at death absorbed into Brahma, Buddha taught that man passes from life into the dreamless, unbroken rest of Nirvâna—a practical annihilation. Much has been written and said concerning the Buddhistic extinction of desire. To the Christian and the Mohammedan alike it is well-nigh incomprehensible that a mere release from existence should be esteemed the highest good. Nevertheless, Nirvána the Blest is the anticipated goal of a third of the human race. Of these hundreds of millions a faithful thanatopsis is expressed in the stanzas: