APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/poe/scheheraza/SCHEHERAZA

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                            1850
         THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
                      by Edgar Allan Poe

             Truth is stranger than fiction.
                                                OLD SAYING.

HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like
the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe;
and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American- if we
except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of American
Literature";- having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the
first- mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to
discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error
respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate
is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and that the denouement there
given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to
blame in not having gone very much farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime, I
shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.

It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only
puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to
espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the
next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a
religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him as
a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted one
afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, to
whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either
redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (which makes
the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the grand
vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king
eagerly accepts- (he had intended to take it at all events, and had put
off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the vizier),- but,
in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand,
that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design
of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore,
the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually
marry him despite her father's excellent advice not to do any thing of
the kind- when she would and did marry him, I say, will I, nill I, it
was with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of
the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in her
mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget what
specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently near
that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed;
and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the good
monarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because he
intended to wring her neck on the morrow),- she managed to awaken him, I
say, (although on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion,
he slept well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a
black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone, of
course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that this
history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade, in the
nature of things could not finish it just then, since it was high time
for her to get up and be bowstrung- a thing very little more pleasant
than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.

The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even over
his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postpone
the fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and with
the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the black
cat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only put
the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat was blue) but
before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the
intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether
mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent
manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this
history the king was even more profoundly interested than with the
other- and, as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all
the queen's endeavors to get through with it in time for the
bowstringing), there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony
as before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a
similar accident with a similar result; and then the next- and then
again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch, having been
unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his vow during a period
of no less than one thousand and one nights, either forgets it
altogether by the expiration of this time, or gets himself absolved of
it in the regular way, or (what is more probable) breaks it outright, as
well as the head of his father confessor. At all events, Scheherazade,
who, being lineally descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole
seven baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up
from under the trees in the garden of Eden-Scheherazade, I say, finally
triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it upon
record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant- but alas! like a
great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true, and I am
indebted altogether to the "Isitsoornot" for the means of correcting the
error. "Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est l'ennemi du bien," and,
in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk,
I should have added that she put them out at compound interest until
they amounted to seventy-seven.

"My dear sister," said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I quote
the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dear
sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the
bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily
repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in
withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores- a
thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor.
This person went through numerous other and more interesting adventures
than those which I related; but the truth is, I felt sleepy on the
particular night of their narration, and so was seduced into cutting
them short- a grievous piece of misconduct, for which I only trust that
Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy my
great neglect- and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in
order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible noise,
I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases) with the sequel
of this very remarkable story.

Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
"Isitsoornot," expressed no very particular intensity of gratification;
but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceased
snoring, and finally said, "hum!" and then "hoo!" when the queen,
understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to signify that he
was all attention, and would do his best not to snore any more- the
queen, I say, having arranged these matters to her satisfaction,
re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad the sailor:

"'At length, in my old age, [these are the words of Sinbad himself, as
retailed by Scheherazade]- 'at length, in my old age, and after enjoying
many years of tranquillity at home, I became once more possessed of a
desire of visiting foreign countries; and one day, without acquainting
any of my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of such
merchandise as was most precious and least bulky, and, engaged a porter
to carry them, went with him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival
of any chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some
region which I had not as yet explored.

"'Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath some
trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a ship,
but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancied that
I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound; and the porter, after
listening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish it. Presently
it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubt
that the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the
edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly
increased in size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming
with a great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came
toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam
around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through
which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended far off into the
distance.

"'As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length was equal
to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as wide as
the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and munificent
of the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of ordinary fishes, was
as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout all that portion
of it which floated above the water, with the exception of a narrow
blood-red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated
beneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and
then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered
with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in misty weather.
The back was flat and nearly white, and from it there extended upwards
of six spines, about half the length of the whole body.

"'The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive, but, as if
to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four score
of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the green
dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows, one above
the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which seemed to answer
the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much
larger than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

"'Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with the
greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy- for
it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor wings like
the seashell which is blown along in the manner of a vessel; nor yet did
it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail were
shaped precisely alike, only, not far from the latter, were two small
holes that served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out
its thick breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,
disagreeable noise.

"'Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but it was
even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a nearer look, we
perceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals about the
size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them, except that
they wore no garments (as men do), being supplied (by nature, no doubt)
with an ugly uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting
so tight to the skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward,
and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads
were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thought
might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discovered
that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore concluded
they were contrivances designed, by their great weight, to keep the
heads of the animals steady and safe upon their shoulders. Around the
necks of the creatures were fastened black collars, (badges of
servitude, no doubt,) such as we keep on our dogs, only much wider and
infinitely stiffer, so that it was quite impossible for these poor
victims to move their heads in any direction without moving the body at
the same time; and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of
their noses- a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively
in an awful degree.

"'When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it
suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted from
it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke, and
a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the smoke cleared
away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near the head of the
large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his
mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable
accents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they
not come altogether through the nose.

"'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I
could in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficulty I
turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and
demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, what
it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed upon
its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for
trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that it
was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire, created by
evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind; that the
things upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and
dogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that these vermin had
their uses, however evil- for, through the torture they caused the beast
by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree of wrath
which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfil the
vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

"This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once even
looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while the
porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, so
that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, of
which I have no doubt he took excellent care- although this is a point I
cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin (who
had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken, bound
hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam out
again into the middle of the sea.

"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I
made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the goodwill
of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise
authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor that,
in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of his
favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of teaching me the
rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its language; so
that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it readily, and came to
make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner- but I
beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not
conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals were
called; I presume because their language formed the connecting link
between that of the horse and that of the rooster). With your
permission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth:- that
is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really a
very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is called
circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the
world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of
the beast.'"

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
"Isitsoornot," the king turned over from his left side to his right, and
said:

"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,
hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them
exceedingly entertaining and strange?"

The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair
Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:

"Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliph- 'I
thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much
at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the ocean;
although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the world, by no
means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went- so to say-
either up hill or down hill all the time.'

"That I think, was very singular," interrupted the king.

"Nevertheless, it is quite true," replied Scheherazade.

"I have my doubts," rejoined the king; "but, pray, be so good as to go
on with the story."

"I will," said the queen. "'The beast,' continued Sinbad to the caliph,
'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at length, we
arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in circumference, but
which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea by a colony
of little things like caterpillars'"*


* The coralites.


"Hum!" said the king.

"'Leaving this island,' said Sinbad- (for Scheherazade, it must be
understood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation)
'leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of solid
stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest-tempered axes
with which we endeavoured to cut them down."'*


* "One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a
petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists of several
hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone. Some trees,
now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling fact for natural
philosophers, and must cause them to modify the existing theory of
petrification.- Kennedy.

This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by the
discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters of the
Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black Hills of
the rocky chain.

There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe more
remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of view than
that presented by the petrified forest, near Cairo. The traveller,
having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the gates of the
city, proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles to the road
across the desert to Suez, and after having travelled some ten miles up
a low barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and sea shells, fresh as
if the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sandhills,
which has for some distance run parallel to his path. The scene now
presented to him is beyond conception singular and desolate. A mass of
fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when struck by his
horse's hoof ringing like cast iron, is seen to extend itself for miles
and miles around him, in the form of a decayed and prostrate forest. The
wood is of a dark brown hue, but retains its form in perfection, the
pieces being from one to fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to
three feet in thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye
can reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through
amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it
might pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the
exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the
branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect, and in some the worm-holes
eaten under the bark are readily recognizable. The most delicate of the
sap vessels, and all the finer portions of the centre of the wood, are
perfectly entire, and bear to be examined with the strongest magnifiers.
The whole are so thoroughly silicified as to scratch glass and are
capable of receiving the highest polish.- Asiatic Magazine.


"Hum!" said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no attention,
continued in the language of Sinbad.

"'Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where there was
a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within the
bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far more
spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in all
Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriads
of gems, liked diamonds, but larger than men; and in among the streets
of towers and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black
as ebony, and swarming with fish that had no eyes.'"*


* The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.


"Hum!" said the king.
 "'We then swam into a region of the sea where we found a lofty
mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of melted metal, some
of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long*; while from an
abyss on the summit, issued so vast a quantity of ashes that the sun was
entirely blotted out from the heavens, and it became darker than the
darkest midnight; so that when we were even at the distance of a hundred
and fifty miles from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest
object, however close we held it to our eyes.'"*(2)


* In Iceland, 1783.

*(2) "During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is more than
fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find their way by
groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, at Caserta, four
leagues distant, people could only walk by the light of torches. On the
first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand, coming from a
volcano in the island of St. Vincent, covered the whole of Barbadoes,
spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at mid-day, in the open
air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects near him, or even
a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six inches from the
eye."- Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit.


"Hum!" said the king.

"'After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we met
with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed- for we here
saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred feet
beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf a forest
of tall and luxuriant trees.'"*


* In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a portion of
the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred yards in diameter,
and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was a part of the forest of
Aripao which sank, and the trees remained green for several months under
the water."- Murray, p. 221


"Hoo!" said the king.

"Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our own
does feather.'"*


* The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a
blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float readily
in the atmospheric air.


"Fiddle de dee," said the king.

"Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the
most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there meandered a
glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was of
unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber. It
was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which arose on
either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crowned
with ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that
made the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the name of this
luxuriant land was the Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable
death'"*


* The region of the Niger. See Simmona's "Colonial Magazine."


"Humph!" said the king.

"'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to
another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous
animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideous
beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel shape,
and line the sides of them with, rocks, so disposed one upon the other
that they fall instantly, when trodden upon by other animals, thus
precipitating them into the monster's dens, where their blood is
immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously
out to an immense distance from "the caverns of death."'"*


* The Myrmeleon-lion-ant. The term "monster" is equally applicable to
small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as "vast" are
merely comparative. The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in comparison
with the hole of the common red ant. A grain of silex is also a "rock."


"Pooh!" said the king.

"'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables that
grew not upon any soil but in the air.* There were others that sprang
from the substance of other vegetables;*(2) others that derived their
substance from the bodies of living animals;*(3) and then again, there
were others that glowed all over with intense fire;*(4) others that
moved from place to place at pleasure,*(5) and what was still more
wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and moved their
limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for
enslaving other creatures, and confining them in horrid and solitary
prisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks.'"*(6)


* The Epidendron, Flos Aeris, of the family of the Orchideae, grows with
merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or other object, from
which it derives no nutriment- subsisting altogether upon air.

*(2) The Parasites, such as the wonderful Rafflesia Arnaldii.

*(3) Schouw advocates a class of plants that grow upon living animals-
the Plantae Epizoae. Of this class are the Fuci and Algae.

Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass., presented the "National Institute,"
with an insect from New Zealand, with the following description:- "'The
Hotte,' a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found growing at the foot of
the Rata tree, with a plant growing out of its head. This most peculiar
and most extraordinary insect travels up both the Rata and Perriri
trees, and entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of
the tree until it reaches the root, it then comes out of the root, and
dies, or remains dormant, and the plant propagates out of its head; the
body remains perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when alive.
From this insect the natives making a coloring for tattooing."

*(4) In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous fungus
that emits an intense phosphorescence.

*(5) The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

*(6) The corolla of this flower (Aristolochia Clematitis), which is
tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated into a
globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally beset with
stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part contains the pistil,
which consists merely of a germen and stigma, together with the
surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter than the germen,
cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the
flower stands always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without
some additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down
to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that nature has furnished in
this case, is that of the Tiputa Pennicornis, a small insect, which
entering the tube of the corrolla in quest of honey, descends to the
bottom, and rummages about till it becomes quite covered with pollen;
but not being able to force its way out again, owing to the downward
position of the hairs, which converge to a point like the wires of a
mouse-trap, and being somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes
backwards and forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly
traversing the stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its
impregnation, in consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop,
and the hairs to shrink to the sides of the tube, effecting an easy
passage for the escape of the insect." Rev. P. Keith-System of
Physiological Botany.


"Pshaw!" said the king.

"'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees and
the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that they
give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise men of
the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for the
solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon the spot-
the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the king keeping
their solution a secret, it was only after the most profound researches
and labor, and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long
series of years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the
identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the bees and
by the birds.'"*


* The bees- ever since bees were- have been constructing their cells
with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such
inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving the
profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in the very
number, and at the very angles, which will afford the creatures the most
room that is compatible with the greatest stability of structure.

During the latter part of the last century, the question arose among
mathematicians- "to determine the best form that can be given to the
sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances from the
revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres of the revolution." This
is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to find
the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances, and at an
infinity of points on the arm. There were a thousand futile attempts to
answer the query on the part of the most illustrious mathematicians; and
when, at length, an undeniable solution was discovered, men found that
the wing of a bird had given it with absolute precision ever since the
first bird had traversed the air.


"Oh my!" said the king.

"'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves
close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a flock
of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty miles long; so
that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it required no less
than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us- in which there were
several millions of millions of fowl.'"*


* He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and the
Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four hours in
passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a length of
240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square yard, gives
2,230,272,000 Pigeons.- "Travels in Canada and the United States," by
Lieut. F. Hall.


"Oh fy!" said the king.

"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great
annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of another
kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in my former
voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on your
seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head
that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was
of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance,
smooth, shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, the
monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from which
it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which we distinctly
saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a state of frightful
despair at the horrible fate which awaited them. We shouted with all our
might, in the hope of frightening the bird into letting go of its prey,
but it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon
our heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!'"

"Stuff!" said the king.

"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of
immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was
supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer
than four hundred horns.'"*


* The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number."- Sale's Koran.


"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read something of
the kind before, in a book."

"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between the
legs of the cow, and, after some hours, found ourselves in a wonderful
country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal, was his own
native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the
man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now began to feel
ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him;
for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most
powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain,* which, no
doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful writhings and
wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination!'"


* "The Entozoa, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been observed in
the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men."- See Wyatt's
Physiology, p. 143.


"Nonsense!" said the king.

"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were
iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black
stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he was
so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than the
grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight of
most birds.'"*


* On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a speed of 71
miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90 tons was whirled
from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51 minutes.


"Twattle!" said the king.

"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly
related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or
black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens
in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence for several
weeks within the stomach of their mother.'"*


* The Eccalobeion


"Fa! lal!" said the king.

"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass and
wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would
have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of the
great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid.* Another of these magi constructed (of
like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of him who
made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it
performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have
required the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year.*(2)
But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing
that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed
with a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such
incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in
writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and this
with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should not
be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair.
This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew
the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised equally
for evil and for good.'"


* Maelzel's Automaton Chess-player.

*(2) Babbage's Calculating Machine.


"Ridiculous!" said the king.

"'Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his
veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting
down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was
thoroughly roasted upon its floor.* Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them
during the process.*(2) Another had such a delicacy of touch that he
made a wire so fine as to be invisible.*(3) Another had such quickness
of perception that he counted all the separate motions of an elastic
body, while it was springing backward and forward at the rate of nine
hundred millions of times in a second.'"*(4)


* Chabert, and since him, a hundred others.

*(2) The Electrotype.

*(3) Wollaston made of platinum for the field of views in a telescope a
wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in thickness. It could be
seen only by means of the microscope.

*(4) Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence of the
violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times in a second.


"Absurd!" said the king.

"'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever yet
saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick out
their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will.* Another had
cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could have made
himself heard from one end of the world to the other.*(2) Another had so
long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at
Bagdad- or indeed at any distance whatsoever.*(3) Another commanded the
lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his
call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took two loud
sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed a deep
darkness out of two brilliant lights.*(4) Another made ice in a red-hot
furnace.*(5) Another directed the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun
did.*(6) Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and
having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their
depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic
ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and dogs
have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all, or that
for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nation itself had
been blotted out from the face of creation."'*(7)


* Voltaic pile.

*(2) The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.

*(3) The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence instantaneously- at
least at so far as regards any distance upon the earth.

*(4) Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays from two
luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on a white
surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258 of an inch, their
intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be any
whole-number multiple of that fraction. A multiple by 2 1/4, 3 1/4, &c.,
gives an intensity equal to one ray only; but a multiple by 2 1/2, 3
1/2, &c., gives the result of total darkness. In violet rays similar
effects arise when the difference in length is 0.000157 of an inch; and
with all other rays the results are the same- the difference varying
with a uniform increase from the violet to the red.

Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results.

*(5) Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a red
heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most volatile of
bodies at a common temperature, will be found to become completely fixed
in a hot crucible, and not a drop evaporates- being surrounded by an
atmosphere of its own, it does not, in fact, touch the sides. A few
drops of water are now introduced, when the acid, immediately coming in
contact with the heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sulphurous
acid vapor, and so rapid is its progress, that the caloric of the water
passes off with it, which falls a lump of ice to the bottom; by taking
advantage of the moment before it is allowed to remelt, it may be turned
out a lump of ice from a red-hot vessel.

*(6) The Daguerreotype.

*(7) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the distance of
61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is ascertained) is so
inconceivably great, that its rays would require more than ten years to
reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20- or even 1000 years- would be
a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been annihilated 20, or 1000
years ago, we might still see them to-day by the light which started
from their surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time. That many which
we see daily are really extinct, is not impossible- not even improbable.


"Preposterous!" said the king.

"'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi,'"
continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by these
frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her
husband- "'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are every
thing that is accomplished and refined; and would be every thing that is
interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them,
and from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and
fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in
certain shapes, and some in others- but this of which I speak has come
in the shape of a crotchet.'"

"A what?" said the king.

"'A crotchet'" said Scheherazade. "'One of the evil genii, who are
perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of
these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal
beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which lies
not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they
say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long
possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the
days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from
a dromedary-'"

"Stop!" said the king- "I can't stand that, and I won't. You have
already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I
perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married?- my
conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedary
touch- do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well get
up and be throttled."

These words, as I learn from the "Isitsoornot," both grieved and
astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she
submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great
consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the
reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that the
petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most righteous
reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.



                          THE END