just as the spell struck them. Vegetation grows rankly between the rocks at the base of the hill. Bracken, giant grasses, brambles, and cactus push their way through rift and crevice. Over the hostile thorns the red gloriosa lily twines its long arms and lifts its crinkled petals into the sunlight. The brilliant scarlet creeps over the yellow tint as the flower warms in the fierce rays, and by sunset it is ruddy to its very heart. Tiny birds hop and twitter over the top of the boulders, dressed in the colours of the lichen that patches the rock. When startled they stand motionless and become invisible. Nature has taught them that their moss-tinted plumage will prove a better protection from the hawking-kite and predatory wild cat than flight. Butterflies pass over the rocky, thorny surface of the hill with enviable ease, as strong on the wing as birds. They come to deposit their eggs on the vegetation, and, having done so, they return to the paddy fields and jungle, where the flowers are more plentiful. Overhead the kites circle, swooping down now and then upon a snake that has come out of this thorny lair to sun itself upon a slab of rock. The monsoon winds sweep over the hill with flash of lightning and roar of thunder, but the princes lie there deaf to all sound and insensible to heat and cold until the spell shall be broken.
The story of the petrified lovers is not current in India. There is another legend to account for the presence of the stones. It has several variations, but the main features are the same.
Before man reached southern India it is said that the country was inhabited by devils, who were called Rakshas. They were evil creatures of darkness, the source of all kinds of trouble to men when they settled in the country. They with the snakes are guardians of hidden treasure, and they love wild solitary spots, which they still inhabit. Many of them were destroyed when the mountains fell. In
