In the famous Hindoo epic, the "Ramayana" of Valmiki,--"by singing and hearing which continually a man may attain to the highest state of enjoyment, and be shortly admitted to fraternity with the gods,"--the exploits of Hoonamunta, the Divine Monkey, are gravely related, with a dramatic force and figurativeness that hold a street audience spell-bound; but to the European imagination the childish drollery of the plot is irrestistible. Boodhir, the Earth, was beset by giants, demons, and chimeras dire; so she besought Vishnu, with many tears, and vows of peculiar adoration, to put forth his strength of arms and arts against her abominable tormentors, and rout them utterly. The god was gracious; whence his nine avatars, or incarnations,--as fish, as tortoise, as boar, as man-lion, as dwarf Brahmin, as Pursuram,--the Brahmin-warrior who overthrew the Kshatriya, or soldier-caste; the eighth avatar appeared in the person of Krishna, and the ninth in that of Boodh. But the seventh incarnation was the avatar of Rama, and it is this that the "Ramayana" celebrates. Vishnu proceeds to be born unto Doosurath, King of Ayodhya, (Oude,) as the Prince Rama, or Ramchundra. Nothing remarkable occurs thereupon until Rama has attained the marriageable age, when he espouses Seeta, daughter of the King of Mithili. Immediately old Mrs. Mithili, our hero's mother-in-law, being of an intriguing turn of mind, applies herself to the amiable task of worrying the poor old King of Ayodhya out of his crown or his life; and so well does she succeed, that Doosurath, for the sake of peace and quietness, would fain abdicate in favor of his son. But Rama will have none of his royalty. Was it for bored kings and mischief-making mothers-in-law, he asks, speaking with the ante-natal memories of Vishnu, that he came among the sons of men? Not at all! he has a mission, and he bides his time. For the present he will take his wife Seeta, whose will is his, and go out into the wilderness, there to build him a hut of bamboos and banian-boughs and palmyra-leaves, and be--Seeta and he--two jolly yogees, that is, religious gypsies,--living on grass-roots, wild rice, and white ants, and being dirty and devout to their heart's content. So they went; and for a little while they enjoyed, undisturbed, their yogeeish ideas of a good time. But by-and-by tidings came to Rawunna--the giant with ten heads and twice ten arms, that was King of Lunka (Ceylon)--of the plots of Mrs. Mithili, the disgust of old Doosurath, the distraction of the kingdom of Ayodhya, and the whimsical adventure of Rama and Seeta.