the fruit he found inside it a beautiful woman; he kept the woman in his house.  At this time the Kamar woman fell ill and was like to die.  Lita was very distressed at the thought of losing his Belbati princess.  At last the Kamarin said that she was being bewitched by the girl who was living in the syce’s house and that one or other of them must die.  Lita at once ordered the girl to be taken into the jungle and killed.  Four Ghasis took her away and put her to death.  Her last request to them was that they should cut off her hands and feet and put them at the four sides of her grave.  This they did.  After the death of the girl the Kamar wife recovered her health.

After a time Lita again went hunting and at nightfall came to the place where the girl had been put to death.  There he found standing a fine palace.  He went in but the only living creatures he saw were two birds who seemed to live there; he lay down on a bed and went to sleep.  While he slept the birds sat by him and began talking.  One told the other the story of the search for the Belbati princess and how the Kamar girl had thrown her into the well and taken her place.  When Lita heard this he awoke and was very unhappy.  The birds told him that once a year the Belbati princess visited the palace in which he was; her next visit would be in six months.  So Lita stayed there and at the end of the six months he hid behind the door to await the princess.  She came and as she passed through the door he caught her by the hand, but she wrenched herself away and fled.  Lita was very depressed but the birds told him to be more careful the next time.  So he waited a year and when the princess was expected he hid himself:  the princess came and seeing no one entered the palace and went to sleep.  While she slept Lita secured her.  They were married and lived happily ever after, and the wicked Kamar girl was put to death.

(9)—­The Bread Tree.

There once was a boy who lived with his mother and was engaged all day in tending cattle.  Every morning when he started his mother gave him two pieces of bread called “hunger bread” and “stuffing bread,”—­one to satisfy hunger with and the other to over-eat oneself on.  One day the boy could not eat all his bread and he left the piece that remained over on a rock.  When he went back the next day he was surprised to see that from the piece of bread a tree had grown which bore loaves of bread instead of fruit.  After that the boy no longer took bread from his mother, but lived on the fruit of his tree.

One day he had climbed his tree to pick a loaf when an old woman came by with a bag over her shoulder and saying that she was very poor begged for a piece of bread.  The old woman was really a Rakshasi.  The boy was kindhearted and told her that he would throw her down a loaf, but the old woman objected that it would get dirty if it fell on the ground.  Then he told her to hold out her cloth and he would throw it into that:  but she said that she could not see well enough to catch the loaf:  he must come down and give it to her:  so the boy came down to give her the loaf and when the Rakshasi had him on the ground, she seized him and put him in her bag and went off with him.