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298
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1896.
her:-"My sister, I have brought a daughter-in-law to you. Come and look at her well. Have you ever seen such a girl in our caste? God has graciously given us this girl. Any man who sees her beauty will never go away from her. Look at her face. How beautiful! Look at her eyes, her eyebrows, and her waist. How beautiful! Her hair is sweeping the ground. Her hair is as black as the black-bee. We shall never find another to match her. See how noble she looks. Are our girls like her?"
Then he told his sister to give her water and have her face washed, and give her milk that she might be refreshed. His sister went in and brought a pot of water and gave it to the girl; and then she brought a bowl of milk and gave it to her. The girl washed her face and hands and feet and then drank the milk. And being refreshed she sat in a reclining posture against a wall. After some time his sister came to Sama Alwa and said :-"Brother, get up, the dinner is ready, wash your face."
So saying, she gave him water. But he said:"Sister, I will go and bathe first; meanwhile go and prepare warm water and give the girl a warm bath."
So saying, he went to the side of the well and drew up water and bathed ; and having finished his bath he came into the house and there he saw that his wife had served up rice for him and also for the girl in a new plate. Then Sama Alwa called to the girl, saying:"Daughter, come and dine."
Then he said :-" Why After you have joined my You are now like one of us. Be quite at home here."
But she was slow in answering his summons out of bashfulness. are you slow, my child? You have joined the Billavar caste. caste, what have you to fear? At this she got up and went in and sat down to take her food. She quickly finished her meal and came out. She did it so quickly that no one knew how she went, or how she took her meal, or how she came back. Then Sama Alwa finished his meal and came out and sat in the verandah. His wife brought him a bag of betel-leaves. He opened the bag and took the betel-leaves, and ate betel-leaves and betel-nut. While eating betel-leaves he called his sister and thus spoke to her:-"My sister, hear me. I was always grieving that I had no female children. Now that grief is over. God has given me a daughter. I was very desirous, if a daughter should be born to me, to give her to your son. Now God has given me this daughter instead of one of my own. So I will give this my daughter to your son. We must celebrate a marriage. We must not do everything according to our own will. We must first tell the Ballal of Parmale. After informing him we must inform all the leaders of our caste. We must prepare all things necessary for the marriage. We must get half a corjee33 of rice prepared. We shall require oil, jaggery, cocoanuts, salt, tamarind, coriander seed and saffron, etc."
While they were thus speaking, Koragars and Holeyas and other low caste people, who were their usual customers, came to the house to drink palm-juice. Sama Alwa told the Holeyas to bring him one mura of salt, and told the Koragars to get baskets, etc., prepared for him. When the fishermen came to his house to drink, he told them to supply him with enough fish for a marriage feast. And when Bants came to his house, he said to them :"O ye sons of 'Sêttis, there is to be a marriage in my house; you must do me a favor."
In this manner he told his friends, one thing to one man and another thing to another. man, and so on. In the meantime the Ballâl of Parmale sent a man for Sama Alwa, and the man said to Sama Alwa :-"The Ballâl has ordered you to come immediately with me."
Sama Alwa consented and started, and went to the Ballâl and bowed to him. Then the Ballal said to Sama Alwa:-"O Sama Alwa, you are seldom seen. Why did you not come to me yesterday ?"
35 [Corge is Anglo-Indian for 'score': see Yule, Hobson-Jobson, B. v. Corge. In the text is a new and very odern form of the word which may help to the tracing of its obscure origin. - ED.]
