t there were several sorts and
degrees of this disorder, some curable and others not; and told
the sultan, that they could not judge of the princess of Bengal's
unless they might see her; upon which the sultan ordered the
eunuchs to introduce them into the princess's chamber, one after
another, according to their rank.

The princess, who foresaw what would happen, and feared, that if
she let the physicians feel her pulse, the least experienced of
them would soon know that she was in good health, and that her
madness was only feigned, flew into such a well-dissembled rage
and passion, that she appeared ready to injure those who came
near her; so none of them durst approach her.

Some who pretended to be more skilful than the rest, and boasted
of judging of diseases only by sight, ordered her some potions,
which she made the less difficulty to take, well knowing she
could be sick or well at pleasure, and that they could do her no
harm.

When the sultan of Cashmeer saw that his court physicians could
not cure her, he called in the most celebrated and experienced of
the city, who had no better success. Afterwards he sent for the
most famous in the kingdom, who met with no better reception than
the others from the princess, and what they prescribed had no
effect. Afterwards he dispatched expresses to the courts of
neighbouring sultans, with the princess's case, to be distributed
among the most famous physicians, with a promise of a munificent
reward to any of them who should come and effect her cure.

Various physicians arrived from all parts, and tried their skill;
but none could boast of better success than their predecessors,
or of restoring the princess's faculties, since it was a case
that did not depend on medicine, but on the will of the princess
herself.

During this interval Firoze Shaw, disguised in the habit of a
dervish, travelled through many provinces and towns, involved in
grief; and endured excessive fatigue, not knowing which way to
direct his course, or whether he might not be pursuing the very
opposite road from what he ought, in order to hear the tidings he
was in search of. He made diligent inquiry after her at every
place he came to; till at last passing through a city of
Hindoostan, he heard the people talk much of a princess of
Bengal, who ran mad on the day of the intended celebration of her
nuptials with the sultan of Cashmeer. At the name of the princess
of Bengal, and supposing that there