mpassable, the fences had been broken down by it,
and the fields of corn laid low; a few wretched peasants were wandering
about there; they looked half clad and half starved. "A miserable valley
indeed!" exclaimed the prince; but as he said it a man came down from
the hills with a great bag of gold in his hand.

"This valley is mine," said he to the people; "I have bought it for
gold. Now make banks that the river may not overflow, and I will give
you gold; also make fences and plant fields, and cover in the roofs of
your houses, and buy yourselves richer clothing." So the people did so,
and as the gold got lower in the bag the valley grew fairer and greener,
till the prince exclaimed, "O gold, I see your value now! O wonderful,
beneficent gold!"

But presently the valley melted away like a mist, and the prince saw an
army besieging a city; he heard a general haranguing his soldiers to
urge them on, and the soldiers shouting and battering the walls; but
shortly, when the city was well-nigh taken, he saw some men secretly
throwing gold among the soldiers, so much of it that they threw down
their arms to pick it up, and said that the walls were so strong that
they could not throw them down. "O powerful gold!" thought the prince;
"thou art stronger than the city walls!"

After that it seemed to himself that he was walking about in a desert
country, and in his dream he thought, "Now I know what labor is, for I
have seen it, and its benefits; and I know what liberty is, for I have
tasted it; I can wander where I will, and no man questions me; but gold
is more strange to me than ever, for I have seen it buy both liberty and
labor." Shortly after this he saw a great crowd digging upon a barren
hill, and when he drew near he understood that he had reached the summit
of his wishes, and that he was to see the place where the gold came
from.

He came up and stood a long time watching the people as they toiled
ready to faint in the sun, so great was the labor of digging the gold.

He saw who had much and could not trust any one to help them to carry
it, binding it in bundles over their shoulders, and bending and groaning
under its weight; he saw others hide it in the ground, and watch the
place clothed in rags, that none might suspect that they were rich; but
some, on the contrary, who had dug up an unusual quantity, he saw
dancing and singing, and vaunting their success, till robbers waylaid
them when they slept, and rifled t