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[FN#17] So in the Mac. Edit.; in others "ninety." I prefer the

greater number as exaggeration is a part of the humour. In the

Hindu "Katha Sarit Sagara" (Sea of the Streams of Story), the

rings are one hundred and the catastrophe is more moral, the good

youth Yashodhara rejects the wicked one's advances; she awakes

the water-sprite, who is about to slay him, but the rings are

brought as testimony and the improper young person's nose is duly

cut off. (Chap. Ixiii.; p. 80, of the excellent translation by

Prof. C. H. Tawney: for the Bibliotheca Indica: Calcutta, 1881.)

The Katha, etc., by Somadeva (century xi), is a poetical version

of the prose compendium, the "Vrihat Katha" (Great Story) by

Gunadhya (cent. vi).

[FN#18] The Joseph of the Koran, very different from him of

Genesis. We shall meet him often enough in The Nights.