wed them up with sprigs and young shoots
of laurels that were at hand; the wound healed, and, what could not have
happened but to so glorious a horse, the sprigs took root in his body,
grew up, and formed a bower over me; so that afterwards I could go upon
many other expeditions in the shade of my own and my horse's laurels.

[Illustration: THE HIND PART OF THE POOR CREATURE WAS MISSING]

VI

Success was not always with me. I had the misfortune to be overpowered
by numbers, to be made prisoner of war; and, what is worse, but always
usual among the Turks, to be sold for a slave. In that state of
humiliation my daily task was not very hard and laborious, but rather
singular and irksome. It was to drive the Sultan's bees every morning to
their pasture grounds, to attend them all day long, and against night to
drive them back to their hives. One evening I missed a bee, and soon
observed that two bears had fallen upon her to tear her to pieces for
the honey she carried. I had nothing like an offensive weapon in my
hands but the silver hatchet, which is the badge of the Sultan's
gardeners and farmers. I threw it at the robbers, with an intention to
frighten them away, and set the poor bee at liberty; but, by an unlucky
turn of my arm, it flew upwards, and continued rising till it reached
the moon. How should I recover it? how fetch it down again? I
recollected that Turkey-beans grow very quick, and run up to an
astonishing height. I planted one immediately; it grew, and actually
fastened itself to one of the moon's horns. I had no more to do now but
to climb up by it into the moon, where I safely arrived, and had a
troublesome piece of business before I could find my silver hatchet, in
a place where everything has the brightness of silver; at last, however,
I found it in a heap of chaff and chopped straw. I was now for
returning: but, alas! the heat of the sun had dried up my bean; it was
totally useless for my descent; so I fell to work and twisted me a rope
of that chopped straw, as long and as well as I could make it. This I
fastened to one of the moon's horns, and slid down to the end of it.
Here I held myself fast with the left hand, and with the hatchet in my
right, I cut the long, now useless end of the upper part, which, when
tied to the lower end, brought me a good deal lower: this repeated
splicing and tying of the rope did not improve its quality, or bring me
down to the Sultan's farm. I was four or five mi