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MAY, 1894.]
MISCELLANEA.
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therefore, asked bin to give her something which would serve her as a souvenir of their love. The king had not the heart to refuse her request, and so he pulled off from his finger a ring, which he presented to her, little suspecting that some day this very ring would be produced as an evidence against himself.
A few years more rolled away, and the twelve years during which the pardhan's daughter was to be imprisoned with the view of making her ent náchni for that period, were also over. The pardhan's daughter, while there were yet two or three days remaining, set her rats to again open a passage to her prison, and the rats, like grateful creatures, at once set to work and finished it in a shorter time than was expected, and on the last day of the twelfth year our heroine, followed by her son, passed through the subterraneous passage, and again installed herself in her place of confinement, so that, should any one open the palace gates, they would see her there, and imagine that she had remained there, ever since she had been bronght in by her husband twelve years ago. The king, too, did not forget her, and he had determined to open the palace gates on that very day. Ho had for this purpose invited several of the neighbouring kings and princes and other men of noto, for he had counted upon seeing - either the náchni more or less all consumed, or the parlhari's daughter a corpse through starration, a fact less probable.
At the appointed time hundreds of kings and princes and nobles and other great men, who were fully acquainted with the object of the invitation, came to see the result. When all had assembled together the king went in person, and, in the presence of all, himself anlocked the doors of the palace, when, wonder of wonders, contrary to all expectations of the king, what did they see ? - the nachni untouched, and the pardhan's daughter carrying a child of three or four years, which she brought and seated on the lap of the king, saying:
“Here is your son, whom I told you, twelve years ago, I would present to you."
All the guests were thunderstruck at this sight, and so, too, the king, her husband, who at last asked for an explanation. The pardhan's daughter said not a word, but produced the king's ring, which she had asked from him at the palace in the neighbouring village, and asked if he could deny that it was his ring. The king admitted it to be his ring, but was at his wit's end to understand how she managed to leave the palace, which he had taken the precaution, not only of locking securely, but of having guarded by several men both by day and night. The qardhan's daughter then related how she had taken with her a few rats, who made a subterraneons passage, which, happily for her, led to the palace in which, after several years, the king saw her, and to which he made visits, the result of which was she became pregnant, and in due time gave birth to the son, whom she now presented to the king, his father. She also mentioned the day on which she asked the king for something as a souvenir of their love, upon which she received the ring she had just produced. She concluded by telling them low, again, she got the rats, whom she had fed for twelve years with the same food as she ate, of which there was an abundance in the palace, to open up the same passage, by which she was ennbled to bring herself and their son to the abode where they now saw her. All the guests were surprised at the courage and the ingenuity of the pardhan's daughter, and the king, too, her husband, admitted her to be a very clever person, and confessed himself outwitted by her. She was then conducted in great splendour to their old palace, in which they had been married, and there they lived happily to a ripe old age, surrounded by many children and grandchildren.
MICELLANEA. SOME DATES OF THE BURMESE COMMON ERA. | Burmese common era, which should admit of
Mr. Taw Sein Ko's account of the Poču dauns verification : inscription of Sʻinbyûyin, ante, Vol. XXII. 1.- Sunday, the 8th of the waxing moon of pp. 2-5, contains the following six dates of the Pyao (i. e. Pâusha), 1136, Sakkaráj';
