wild buffaloes used to sleep at night, and he swept up the place and
made it clean and then took refuge in a hollow tree; he stayed there
some days, sweeping up the place daily and supporting himself on the
fruit of a fig-tree. At last one day the buffaloes left one cow behind
to watch and see who it was who swept up their sleeping place. The cow
pretended to be too ill to rise, and Ledha after watching for some
time came out and swept the ground as usual, and then tried to pull
the sick cow up by the tail; but she would not move so he went back to
his hollow tree. When the buffaloes returned they heard that it was a
kindhearted man who cleaned their sleeping place; so they called Ledha
out and said that they would keep him as their servant to clean their
sleeping place and to scrub them when they bathed in the river; they
made him taste the milk of all the cows and appointed the cow whose
milk he liked best to supply him. Thenceforward he used to wander
about with the buffaloes and he made a flute and used to play on it.

One day after scrubbing the buffaloes he washed his head in the river
and some of his hairs came out; so he wrapped them up in a leaf and
set the packet to float down the stream. Lower down the stream two
princesses were bathing with their attendants, and when they saw
the packet they tried who could fish it out and it was the younger
princess who caught it. Then they measured the hairs and found them
twelve cubits long. The princess who had taken the packet from the
water went home and took to her bed and said that she would not
eat until the man was found to whom the hairs belonged. Her father,
the Raja, sent messengers in all directions to search for the man
but they could not find him. Then he sent a parrot and the parrot
flew up high and looking down saw Ledha with the buffaloes in the
forest; but it did not dare to go near, so the parrot returned and
told the Raja that the man was in the forest but that no messenger