Eastern Stories and Legends

by Unknown

Introduction By

Annie Carroll Moore

Of The New York Public Library

New York

E. P. Dutton & Company

681 Fifth Avenue

1920

FOREWORD

I recollect riding late one night along the high-road from Galle to Colombo. The road skirts the shore. On the left hand the long breakers of the Indian Ocean broke in ripples on the rocks in the many little bays. On the right an endless vista of tall cocoanut palms waved their top-knots over a park-like expanse of grass, and the huts of the peasantry were visible here and there beneath the trees. In the distance a crowd had gathered on the sward, either seated on the grass or leaning against the palms. I turned aside—no road was wanted—to see what brought them there that moonlight night.