our heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!'"

"Stuff!" said the king.

"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of
immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was
supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer
than four hundred horns.'" (*18)

"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read something of
the kind before, in a book."

"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between the
legs of the cow), and, after some hours, found ourselves in a wonderful
country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal, was his own
native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the
man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now began to feel
ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him;
for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most
powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, (*19) which,
no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful writhings and
wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination!'"

"Nonsense!" said the king.

"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were
iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black
stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he was
so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than the
grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight of
most birds.'" (*20)

"Twattle!" said the king.

"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly
related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or
black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens
in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence for several
weeks within the stomach of their mother.'" (*21)

"Fa! lal!" said the king.

"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass and
wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would
have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of the
great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22) Another of these magi constructed
(of like material) a creature that put to shame even the