[4] The faith of these people is certainly
larger than all the mustard-seeds in the world.
I told a very opulent and respectable Hindoo banker one day that it
seemed to us very strange that Vishnu should come upon the earth
merely to sport with milkmaids, and to hold up an umbrella, however
large, to defend them from a shower. 'The earth, sir,' said he, 'was
at that time infested with innumerable demons and giants, who
swallowed up men and women as bears swallow white ants; and his
highness, Krishna, came down to destroy them. His own mother's
brother, Kans, who then reigned at Mathura over Govardhan, was one of
these horrible demons. Hearing that his sister would give birth to a
son that was to destroy him, he put to death several of her progeny
as soon as they were born.[5] When Krishna was seven days old, he
sent a nurse, with poison on her nipple, to destroy him likewise; but
his highness gave such a pull at it, that the nurse dropped down
dead. In falling, she resumed her real shape of a she-demon, and her
body covered no less than six square miles, and it took several
thousand men to cut her up and burn her, to prevent the pestilence
that must have followed.
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