his ears, nor had the lightning of the trooper's scimitar ever flashed
across his eyes:--He had never fallen a captive into the hands of an
enemy, nor been overwhelmed amidst a shower of their arrows.

It happened that this young man and I kept running on together; and any
venerable ruin that might come in our way he would overthrow with the
strength of his shoulder; and any huge tree that we might see he would
wrench from its root with his lion-seizing wrist, and boastfully
cry:--"Where is the elephant, that he may behold the shoulder and arm of
warriors? Where the lion, that he may feel the wrist and grip of
heroes?"

Such was our situation when two Hindus darted from behind a rock and
prepared to cut us off, one of them holding a bludgeon in his hand, and
the other having a mallet under his arm. I called to the young man, "Why
do you stop?--Display whatever strength and courage thou hast, for the
foe came on his own feet up to his grave":--I perceived that the youth's
bow and arrows had dropped from his hands, and that a tremor had fallen
upon his limbs:--It is not he that can split a hair with a coat-of-mail
cleaving arrow that is able to withstand an assault from the
formidable:--No alternative was left us but that of surrendering our
arms, accoutrements, and clothes, and escaping with our lives. On an
affair of importance employ a man experienced in business who can bring
the fierce lion within the noose of his halter; though the youth be
strong of arm and has the body of an elephant, in his encounter with a
foe every limb will quake with fear. A man of experience is best
qualified to explore a field of battle, as one of the learned is to
expound a point of law.

XIX

I saw a rich man's son seated by his father's tomb, and in a disputation
with that of a dervish holding forth and saying: "My father's mausoleum
is built of granite, the epitaph inscribed with letters of gold, the
pavement and lining marble, and tessellated with slabs of turquoise; and
what is there left of your father's tomb but two or three bricks
cemented together with a few handfuls of mortar?" The poor man's son
heard this, and answered: "I pray you peace! for before your father can
stir himself under this heavy load of stone mine shall have risen up to
heaven!" And there is a tradition of the prophet, that _death to the
poor is a state of rest_. That ass proceeds all the lighter on his
journey on whom they load the lightest burden:--the p