THE HISTORY OF A NUT-CRACKER. 17
years at the court of the King of Dates and at that of the
Canes of Almonds: they had uselessly consulted the cele-
brated Academy of Grau Monkeys and the famous Natu-
ralist Society of Squirrels; until at length they arrived,
sinking with fatigue, upon the borders of the great forest
which touches the feet of the Himalayan Mountains. And
now they dolefully said to each other that they had only a
hundred and twenty-two days to find what they sought,
after an useless search of fourteen years and five months.

If I were to tell you, my dear children, the strange ad-
ventures which happened to the two travellers during that
long wandering, I should occupy
you every evening for an entire
month, and should then weary you
in the long run. I will therefore
only tell you that Christian Elias
Drosselmayer, who was the most
eager in search after the nut,—since
his head depended upon finding it,
—gave himself up to greater dan-
gers than his companion, and lost
~ all his hair by a

stroke of the sun ra

received in the ~ Z
tropics. He also
lost his right eye
by an arrow which a Caribbean Chief
aimed at him. Moreover, his drab
frock-coat, which was not new when he
left Germany, had literally fallen
into rags and tatters. His situation
was therefore most deplorable; and
yet, so much do men cling to life,
that, damaged as he was by the

various accidents which had be- =
fallen him, he beheld with increas-

    
 

 

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