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went to the forest in search of Yoritomo. Reaching the huge tree, Kage-chika was about to enter the hollow therein, when Kage-taki interposed saying that it was no use going therein, as there was a spider's web right across the entrance thereof and that it was quite impossible for anyone to get inside without breaking the said web. Being a little suspicious, Kage-chika was about to thrust his bow into the hollow to feel what was inside, when two beautiful white doves flew out of the top of the hole. Thereupon Kage-chika was convinced of the correctness of his cousin Kage-taki's words, saying that no one could be within that tree with wild doves therein and the entrance thereinto closed by a cobweb.

Thus it was that Yoritomo's life was saved by a spider and two doves. When he became Shogun in later years, he built two shrines in the temple of Tsurugaoka which itself is dedicated to Hachiman the God of War. One of these is dedicated to the Emperor Nintoku, son of Ojin, the God of War. The shrines were erected to show Yoritomo's gratitude to the God of War, for doves are known in Japan as the messengers of war, not of peace,

Japanese Version of Rip Van Winkle.-Readers of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle will recognise its similarlity as regards one incident, viz., that of the supernatural lapse of time in fairy-land, to the fascinating but pathetic Japanese fairy-tale of Urashima Taro. In this story, it is related that, one day, a fisher-boy, named Urashima Taro, went to fish and caught a tortoise which is believed to be the servant of the Dragon-King beneath the sea. This tortoise he set free with a prayer to the gods. Then the daughter of the Dragon-King of the sea appeared to him, in a dream, and took him to her father's palace beneath the waters, where she married

him. There Urashima spent three years most happily in the company of his wife. But, subsequently, feeling homesick, he expressed a desire to his wife to return to his native country, whereupon she wept and said that she would never see him again. But she gave him a box which, she said, would help him in returning to her, telling him not to open it on any account. Taking the box with him, he returned to his native land, but found there everything new and altered.

Enquiring from a very old man, Urashima came to know about the story as to how he (Urashima) had been supposed to have been drowned in the sea some four hundred years ago and as to how his (Urashima's) people had gone to their long home, long, long ago.

There

upon, he went to the burial ground and verified the old man's allegations by himself examining the tombs erected to the memory of his own self and of his kinsmen. Believing himself to be the victim of some strange illusion and entertaining some doubt as to what might be contained in the box given him by the Dragon-King's daughter, he opened it, whereupon, lo and behold! there issued from it a white mist-like vapour which floated away, leaving the box empty. Immediately the box was opened, Urashima himself became transformed into a very old man, his hairs became hoary with age, his teeth fell out, his face became shrivelled, his limbs thin and withered, his strength fast ebbed away and he fell down lifeless on the ground, overpowered by the weight of four hundred years.

CHAPRA,

SARAT CHANDRA MITRA,

The 5th February 1911.

Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

By Lafcadio Hearn.

1900.

pp. 4-II.

CRITICAL NOTICE.

THE PARK STREET CEMETERIES, CALCUTTA: HAND-LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL MONUMENTS.-Compiled by G. O'Connell and E. W. Madge. With plans. Calcutta, 1911. 4to.

SINCE the publication, in 1746, of Hervey's once well-known Meditations among the Tombs, an interest was awakened in these " great magazines of mortality." Of records of tombs in India we have now a more or less complete list. Government has published certain volumes of Indian monumental inscriptions, We have lists for Bengal by the late Dr. C. R. Wilson, for Madras by Mr. J. J. Cotton, I.C.S., and for the United Provinces by the Rev. A. Führer. Those for Assam and the Punjab have also been issued. We do not know of any official lists (although it is more than likely some are in course of preparation) for the Central Provinces, Bombay, Burma or Ceylon. The authority for the last is Ludovici's Lapidarium Zeylanicum, but it gives only Dutch memorials. Among non-official works, we have Urquhart's Oriental Obituary (1809), DeRozario's Monumental Register (1815), and the Bengal Obituary published by Holmes and Co. in 1848 and reprinted in 1851. There is a monograph on the old tombs at Surat by Mr. A. F. Bellasis of the Bombay Civil Service, while Eastwick's edition of Murray's Handbook contains some interesting inscriptions. There can be little doubt that a ramble among the tombs will teach the visitor more about the career of Europeans in this "land of regrets" than many an hour spent over musty records. Writing of the Bengal burying grounds so far

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back as 1785, Sophia Goldborne observed: "Obelisks and pagodas are erected at great expense; and the whole spot is surrounded by as well turned a walk as those traverse in Kensington Gardens, ornamented by a double row of aromatic trees, which afford a solemn and beautiful shade: in a word, not old Windsor churchyard, with all its cypress and yews is in the smallest degree comparable to them; I quitted them with unspeakable reluctance." The Graphic of so recent a date as 16th December 1911, has an illustrated article on "The Rank and File who have given us India", reproducing a few photographs taken in cemeteries.

The pamphlet before us-which, so far as we know, is the first handbook of its kind-gives, within the compass of ten pages, a list of the more notable monuments in what has been described by Lord Curzon, "the most pathetic site in Calcutta." To add to the usefulness of the brochure, plans have been provided and brief notes supplied, with a column referring the visitor to books in which fuller information may be obtained. The compilers were fortunate in having received help from so eminent a necrologist as Mr. Julian Cotton, I.C.S., and their notes leave little to be desired. Under Colonel Thomas Deane Pearse, the "Father of the Bengal Artillery" and known to fame as Hastings' "second" in the duel with Francis, the compilers have given a reference to an article in Blackwood's Magazine. They might perhaps have added a similar reference under Dr. Tyso Saul Hancock to an article (entitled "A Friend of Warren Hastings") in the same magazine (April, 1904) from the pen of "Sydney C. Grier," as also to certain notes in Bengal: Past and Present (Vol. II, p. 363) contributed by Lieutenant-Colonel D. G. Crawford. Under N. J. Halhed, Scholar, Judge

and Linguist, they give a reference to the Bengal Obituary, but have corrected the mistake which occurs therein regarding his relationship to the more famous N. B. Halhed. Anent the latter, it may be noted, an article appeared in an old number (No. 51) of the Calcutta Review from the pen of his Executor Dr. John Grant under the heading "Warren Hastings in Slippers." References to Sir John Royds, "who conscientiously discharged his important duties with honour to himself and with advantage to the public, while he benefited and advanced the society in which he lived by the benevolence of his disposition and the accomplishments of a scholar and a gentleman" may be found in Cotton's Calcutta: Old and New and Buckland's

Dictionary of Indian Biography. The compilers modestly omit to mention that the monument to H. L. V. Derozio, the young Eurasian poet, teacher and reformer, was renovated and marked with a tablet (with inscriptions giving the correct dates of birth and death taken from the old vestry records of St. John's) erected at the expense of one of them, viz., Mr. O'Connell.

To disarm criticism they have taken the precaution to state in the prefatory note that their work does not claim to be regarded as a complete guide-book, but only mentions the "more notable" monuments. One may sometimes fail to see, however, on what principle the selection has been made. Mountford Bramley, the first Principal of the Medical College, finds a place, but one misses the name of William Twining, who served at Waterloo and was the first Assistant Surgeon to the Presidency General Hospital and the author of a now forgotten work on the Diseases of Bengal. So too, we find the name of Cudbert Thornhill, but miss that of Henry Wedderburn, who was also Master Attendant at

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