e with this tribe never to eat till hard pressed by hunger,
and to discontinue their repast while they have yet an appetite." The
physician said, "This accounts for their health." Then he kissed the
earth of respect and took his leave. The physician will then begin to
inculcate temperance, or to extend the finger of indulgence, when from
silence his patient might suffer by excess, or his life be endangered by
abstinence:--of course, the skill of the physician is advice, and the
patient's regimen and diet yield the fruits of health!

V

A certain person would be making vows of abstinence and breaking them.
At last a reverend gentleman observed to him, "So I understand that you
make a practice of eating to excess; and that any restraint on your
appetite, namely, this vow, is weaker than a hair, and this
voraciousness, as you indulge it, would break an iron chain; but the day
must come when it will destroy you." A man was rearing the whelp of a
wolf; when full grown it tore its patron and master.

VI

In the annals of Ardishir Babagan it is recorded that he asked an
Arabian physician, saying, "What quantity of food ought to be eaten
daily?" He replied, "A hundred dirams' weight were sufficient." The king
said, "What strength can a man derive from so small a quantity?" The
physician replied: "_So much can support you; but in whatever you exceed
that you must support it_.--Eating is for the purpose of living, and
speaking in praise of God; but thou believest that we live only to eat."

VII

Two dervishes of Khorasan were fellow-companions on a journey. One was
so spare and moderate that he would break his fast only every other
night, and the other so robust and intemperate that he ate three meals a
day. It happened that they were taken up at the gate of a city on
suspicion of being spies, and both together put into a place, the
entrance of which was built up with mud. After a fortnight it was
discovered that they were innocent, when, on breaking open the door,
they found the strong man dead, and the weak one alive and well. They
were astonished at this circumstance. A wise man said, "The contrary of
this had been strange, for this one was a voracious eater, and not
having strength to support a want of food, perished; and that other was
abstemious, and being patient, according to his habitual practice,
survived it.--When a person is habitually temperate, and a hardship
shall cross him, he will get over it with ea