nd meat for his
children.

As he journeyed, a famished vulture made a pounce at the meat, and
Hassan's turban fell off, with which the vulture, balked of the meat,
flew away, far out of sight.

When the two men returned they found Hassan very unhappy, and the same
who had given before gave him another two hundred pieces, which Hassan
hid carefully, all but ten pieces, in a pot of bran. While he was out
buying hemp, his wife exchanged the pot of bran for some scouring sand
with a sandman in the street. Hassan was maddened when he came home, and
beat his wife, and tore her hair, and howled like an evil spirit. When
his friends returned they were amazed by his tale, but the one who had
as yet given nothing now gave Hassan a lump of lead picked up in the
street, saying: "Good luck shall come of homely lead, where gold profits
nothing."

Hassan thought but little of the lead, and when a fisherman sent among
his neighbours that night for a piece of lead wherewith to mend his
nets, very willingly did Hassan part with this gift, the fisherman
promising him the first fish he should catch.

When Hassan's wife cut open this fish to cook it, she found within it a
large piece of glass, crystal clear, which she threw to the children for
a plaything. A Jewess who entered the shop saw this piece of glass,
picked it up, and offered a few pieces of money for it. Hassan's wife
dared not do anything now without her husband's leave, and Hassan, being
summoned, refused all the offers of the Jewess, perceiving that the
piece of glass was surely a precious diamond. At last the Jewess offered
a hundred thousand pieces of gold, and, as this was wealth beyond
wealth, Hassan very willingly agreed to the barter.

_IV.--Prince Ahmed and the Fairy_

Once upon a time there was a sultan who had three sons, and all these
young men loved their cousin, the fatherless and motherless Nouronnihar,
who lived at their father's court.

To decide which should marry the princess the sultan bade them go forth,
each a separate way, and, after a time, determined to end their travels
by assembling at a certain place. "He of you who brings back from his
travels the greatest of rarities," said the sultan, "he shall marry the
princess, my niece." To Almighty Allah was confided the rest.

The eldest of the princes, Houssain by name, consorted with merchants in
his travels, but saw nothing strange or wonderful till he encountered a
man crying a piece of carp