12. I am too far from my country and know none of my friends and relatives; unto whom I shall return and there to die. 13. Therefore all these scenes that I have come to see, are no more than the forms of the fairy land pictured in my fancy. 14. Be it as it may, all this is but delusion and dream, and we are living dead among our friends; it is all magic and delusion, and nothing is true or real herein. 15. Our minds are as wild beasts, roaming furiously in the forest of error; which presents endless scenes of delusion to living beings at large. 16. Reflecting on these delusions in his mind, Gádhi passed some days at his own house amidst the woods. 17. Once on a time he happened to entertain a Bráhman at his house as his guest, who resorted there to take his rest from his travels. 18. He was highly gratified with feasting upon fruits and syrup of flowers, and was as refreshed supplied with sap as the tree which is supplied by the bounteous spring, and shoots forth in its foliage and fruitage in time. 19. They then performed their evening service, and turned their beads, and afterwards took to their beds made of tender leaves and grass. 20. There they began to talk on divine subjects, with which they were conversant; and the words fell from the lips, like the sweets of the vernal season. 21. Then Gádhi asked his guest in the course of their conversation, saying: why is it sir, that you are so thin and lean and appear to lie so very weary. 22. The guest replied:—Hear me sir, relate to you the cause both of my leanness and weariness, and I will tell you the true facts, and not as a travelling teller of tales deals and lies. 23. There is on the surface of this land, and in the woody tracts of the north, the great district of the Kir (Kirgis?), which is far renowned for its richness. (Kir the land of the Gees in Afghanistan). 24. I lived in the city there; and was honoured by its inhabitants, and the gust of my soul and mind were mightily pleased with the variety of dainty food that I used to get there. 25. There it was once related to me by some one in the way of gossip, that a chandála had once been the king of that country for the space of eight years. 26. I inquired of the village people about the truth of this report, and they all told me with one voice, that a chandála, had really reigned there for full eight years. 27. But being discovered at last as such, he immolated himself on the burning pile; which was followed by the self-immolation of hundreds of Bráhmans on the funeral pyre. 28. Hearing this news from their mouths, I departed from that district, intending, O Bráhman, to do my penance, by making a pilgrimage to Prayága (Allahabad, on the doab or confluence of the two sacred streams of Gangá and Jamuna). 29. I made my _chándráyana_ fast for three days and nights, and had to break my fast only this day. It is for this reason, that have become so very thin and lean, as you find me at present.