THE OCEAN OF STORY VOL. IV

The first hundred and twenty-one pages of the present volume are taken up with the “Story of Suryaprabha and how he attained Sovereignty over the Vidyadharas,” which, with its few sub-stories, constitutes Book VIII. It is much the longest tale we have had so far, although it is certainly not the most interesting. In fact, like the longest tale in the Nights—“ King Omar Bin Al-Nu’uman ”—it “has its longueurs and at times is longsome enough,” dealing at first with somewhat wearisome accounts of how the hero abductcd each of his brides and subsequently had to appease their angry and indignant fathers. Even when the actual fighting begins, we have a long drawn-out series of single combats, which are, however, relieved in places by some fine descriptions of battle scenes, reminding us of similar ones in the tale from the Nights mentioned above.