Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/168 - Wikisource, the free online library

applauded her answer and gave to good birth the palm over education.

A certain Emperor of China, a land of idolaters and infidels, was once visited by a famous traveller who related the marvels which he had witnessed in different countries, and, among other things, informed his Majesty that the Shah of Persia had a lion so tame that it would follow its master about everywhere like a well-trained hound; that the Emìr of Cabûl had a tiger; the ruler of Cashmere a leopard; and, in short, every potentate he had ever visited or heard of, possessed some wild beast which had learnt to be companionable. It made the ruler of the Chinese feel small to think that he alone, among the sovereigns of the earth, had no strange pet. As wisest of men and chief of monarchs, he scorned to ape such inferior mortals as either the Shah of Persia or the Czar of Muscovy, and determined to adopt some creature that no human being had ever dreamt of taming.

Having, after much deliberation, made his choice, he summoned his councillors and laid upon them his commands to devise some means to tame that foul and fierce animal, the pig, so completely that it should become as clean, gentle, and well-disposed as a lamb.

The assembled sages and courtiers told their master that what he asked of them was feasible, and in fact, so easy that they would set about it at once. “All that has to be done,” said they, “is to give orders