e shut himself in his chamber for six
months, to deliberate how he should grow rich; he sometimes proposed to
offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings of India, and
sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One
day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuation of opinion, sleep
insensibly seized him in his chair; he dreamed that he was ranging a
desert country in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich;
and as he stood on the top of a hill shaded with cypress, in doubt
whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a sudden, standing
before him.

6. Ortogrul, said the old man, I know thy perplexity; listen to thy
father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain. Ortogrul looked, and
saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noise of
thunder, and scattering, its foam on the impending woods. Now, said his
father, behold the valley that lies between the hills.

7. Ortogrul looked, and espied a little well, out of which issued a
small rivulet. Tell me now, said his father, dost thou wish for sudden
affluence, that may pour upon thee like the mountain torrent, or for a
slow and gradual increase, resembling the rill gliding from the well?
Let me be quickly rich, said Ortogrul; let the golden stream be quick
and violent.

8. Look round thee, said his father, once again. Ortogrul looked, and
perceived the channel of the torrent dry and dusty; but following the
rivulet from the well, he traced it to a wide lake, which the supply,
slow and constant, kept always full. He waked, and determined to grow
rich by silent profit, and persevering industry.

9. Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandise, and in twenty
years purchased lands, on which he raised a house equal in sumptuousness
to that of the Vizier, to which he invited all the ministers of
pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had imagined
riches able to afford. Leisure soon made him weary of himself, and he
longed to be persuaded that he was great and happy. He was courteous and
liberal; he gave all that approached him hopes of pleasing him, and all
who should please him, hopes of being rewarded. Every art of praise was
tried, and every source of adulatory fiction was exhausted.

10, Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found
himself unable to believe them. His own heart told him its frailties.
His own understanding reproached him with his faults. How long, sa