The death, in tragic circumstances, of Professor Josef Markwart, of Berlin, on 4th February, ought not to pass unnoticed in this country. For although his name is here unfamiliar to all but a small group of scholars, he occupies, and must always occupy, a place in the forefront of European Orientalists, and it would be difficult to name any past or present scholar with a wider range of learning or a more brilliant critical faculty, whether as philologist, historian, or ethnologist. He was a fine classical scholar; he could read nearly every literary language of Asia, and he had a profound knowledge of African ethnology. Though his total output of published work was comparatively small—amounting only to four or five books and a number of articles in learned journals—it may be said that every sentence he wrote bore the hall-mark of his immense learning and his rare analytical power.

It has been my happy privilege to contribute a paper to the volume of Indian Studies lately published in honour of my old friend Professor Lanman. It was an English translation of the Indian legend of the Birth of Lōrik, and, in the following pages, I endeavour to complete the presentation by giving the original text on which that translation was founded.

In the Province of Bihār, and in the United Provinces of Agra and Audh, the Gōwālās (Gōpālakas) or Ahīrs (Abhīras) are well known as an important pastoral tribe. Their caste-profession is cattlekeeping and selling milk and its products, and, though the milk they sell is not always free from suspicion—witness many proverbs—they are, as a body, looked upon with some consideration. There is a famous tribal legend concerning an Ahīr named Lōrik that is very popular among them, and the long folk-epic describing his birth and adventures is sung at all their festivals. A Bihār proverb runs:—