No one can tell how many hundreds of years have passed since the stories that rule the lives of Hindu children to-day were first told. Long before the earliest time of which we know anything in the history of our islands, there were wise thinkers and clever workmen in India, and the men and women of that land think of them and of their customs with awe and reverence. And because much of the life of a Hindu child to-day is the result of the thoughts that have come from that far past time, we must listen to some of those old stories. Before America was discovered by Columbus men here had strange ideas about the shape of the world. Men in India had thought of that too, long before anyone in Britain did, and this is the picture of the world they made for themselves. They saw a beautiful large lotus flower held up on the back of an elephant, in the midst of seven seas. One sea was of salt water and another of fresh, and these two were the only ones that were at all like the seas of earth. One of the others was a sticky sea, for the waves that broke on its shores were of sugar-cane juice. Another was clear and sparkling with dancing waves of wine. Then there was an oily sea of melted butter, a flat sea of curds, and a beautiful white sea of milk. But no one had looked at these strange seas, nor had anyone seen the great elephant that held the lotus flower on his back. Only the flower itself at the centre of all was seen or known. India to the south, and the other lands to the north, the east, and the west of the Himalayas, formed the petals of the world lotus, and at its centre amongst the great snow mountains the god Siva sat on his throne on Mount Meru. There is one special mountain there, to which pilgrims go, and they hold it as sacred as if it really were the ancient Mount Meru. It rises from a grassy plain, and a deep ravine cuts it off from the other mountains. High up it is covered with snow, but towards the foot great cliffs of rock stand out bluish purple against the whiteness, in bands round the mountain. Near the base there is a broad dark band made by a very high cliff, and the priests point this out to pilgrims. “See,” they say, “the mark of the ropes of the demon who tried to drag away the throne of Siva.” [Illustration: ON PILGRIMAGE TO THE MOUNTAIN]