Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

��But time flies all the same: and as the day wears out the scene changes. In the declining hours of the evening there pass into the streets, either riding or driving, the obivalrous noblemen of the city, well garned by their footmen. They are clad in red silk and flowing upper garments. Their swords hang by their sides, and on their breasts roll wreaths of undying fame.

Being extremely wealthy, these gentlemen spend the hot hours of the day in agreeable society at home. later on the high terraces of their palatial residences, appear their ladies, like angels dropped from Heaven. Their perfumes spread fragrance through all the streets, and their happy faces, occasionally hidden by the waving banners hung up on their house tops, shine like the moon struggling under passing clouds.

��The sun has now gone down and the moon is up; but Madurai still knows no rest. The lighting of lamps is but the signal for the fair ladies of the town to prepare themselves for enjoyment. It is for the first time, like wise, when disreputable characters of both sexes come out and wander about the streets, some of them so drunk that they are unmindful of the sharp pricking nails, that are scattered in front of the elephants, when they turn wild and attack the mahouts that lead them.

But more responsible classes of persons are also abroad. For instance, young women, who have but recently attained the honour of maternity, are now taken to the tanks for ablutions, while others go out to meet them and to receive their blessings, in the hope of becoming equally fortunate. Later on the sooth Sayers of the Velan class gather in the houses of the sick, and propitiate in deafening songs the particular deities to whole ill will the diseases are discovered to be due. Each street has, besides, its merry dances and noisy pastimes.

��So passes the night till twelve, when, step by step, the dancing and singing parties decline in vigour. The petty traders now close their shops, by dropping their bamboo screens, and the poor dealers in sweetmeats sleep in front of their dainties. The actors and performers, likewise, retire to rest; and the town, like an exhausted sea is wrapt up in the silence of sleep., but the sea again Madhura knows no completed rest.

For now that honest folks have gone to sleep, devils, human and super human, come out to work their mischief. With the human or the tangible portion of the class, on the other hand, besides weapons of offence and defense these ruffians appear to have carried with them certain rope ladders for scaling high walls and roofs of houses. But their equipments are of no avail since the alertness of the might patrols ever proves too much for them.

If our poet��s description of the police officers of his days can be believed, they must have been a wonderfully efficient and exemplary body. With sleepless eyes and fearless hearts they combine consummate cunning and complete knowledge by law. But it is their high sense of duty that is altogether surprising. ��not even in the rainy nights, when the high streets overflow with water do they absent themselves from their trying posts of duty, or permit themselves a wink of sleep.�� Watched over by such a constabulary it is no wonder that the city passes the night in careless profound slumber.

��But there are not many hours for such sweet response. Long before dawn, we hear the Brahmins reciting the Vedas like so many humming bees on surface of opening buds. The musicians are next heard tuning their instruments. The feminine dealers in dainties are now up and are plastering as usual the floors of their shops with cow dung. The toddy sellers are not a whit behind hand, and their confirmed customers are already making their way merrily towards their taverns.

The screeching sound of the opening doors now declares that the city is fast shaking off its slumber and in the work of rousing even the sleepiest, the crowing cocks, the reasonant drums, the song of birds, the caw of peacocks and the roar of elephants and tigers in the royal vivarium, all take part. The counter years of the rich are then swept clean of the esteemed flowers of yesterday, which have become the dirt of today.

With the early dawn the king��s forces return from one or other of the many scenes of warfare, with such trophies as the following: elephants, horses, ornate gates of the captured fortresses, and flocks of cattle lifted in the light of burning villages and driver thither by long spears improvised as goading sticks. Following the victorious forces come the conquered princes themselves to purchase peace from the king, as soon as ho rises. To prevent us from taking this triumphal march of successful forces and suppliant princess as a mere accident of the particular morning of our visit, the poet adds that it is thus, day after day, the wealth of the world flows into the city, exactly as the Ganges empties herself into the sea. As the procession passes on the sum rises up in the heavens, and Madhura presents once more the scene of the crowded bustle and confusion, which we witnessed when we arrived in the city previous morning��.