ok of compassion and affability, that familiarized him to my
imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with
which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by
the hand, Mirza, said he, I have heard thee in thy soliloquies: follow
me.

5. He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on
the top of it, cast thy eyes eastward, said he, and tell me what thou
seest. I see, said I, a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water
rolling through it.

The valley that then seest, said, he, is the vale of misery and the
tide of water that thou seest, is part of the great tide of eternity.

6. What is the reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick
mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other?
What thou seest, said he, is that portion of eternity which is called
time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the
world to its consummation. Examine now, said he, this sea that is
bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in
it. I see a bridge, said I; standing in the midst of the tide. The
bridge thou seest said he, is human life; consider it attentively.

7. Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of
threescore and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which,
added to those that were entire, made up the number of about an hundred.
As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge
consisted at the first of a thousand arches; but that a great flood
swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now
beheld it; but tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on it. I
see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a black cloud
hanging on each end of it.

8. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passengers
dropping through the bridge, into the great, tide that flowed underneath
it; and upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable
trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no
sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide, and
immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at
the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke
through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner,
towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together towards the
end of the arches that were entire.

9. There