436 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

to death seriously, and not I; I did it yesterday only in
play.”

The caliph, fully persuaded of the treachery of the merchant,
gave him up to the ministers of justice to have him hanged ; and
this sentence was executed after he had confessed where the
thousand pieces of gold were concealed, which were then re-
turned to Ali Cogia. This monarch, in short, so celebrated for
his justice and equity, after having advised the cadi who had
passed the first sentence, and who was present, to learn froma
child to be more exact in the performance of his office, embraced
the boy, and sent him home again with a purse containing a
hundred pieces of gold, which he ordered to be given him as a
proof of his liberality.

~~ ERE

THE STORY OF THE ENCHANTED HORSE.

HE Nevrouz, or new day, which is the first of the year,
and of spring, and thus called by way of superior dis-
tinction, is a festival so solemn and so ancient
throughout the whole extent of Persia, taking its

origin even from the earliest periods of idolatry, that there is no

town, borough, village, or hamlet, in the kingdom, however
small, where the festival is not celebrated with extraordinary re-
joicing.

But those which take place at court surpass all others by the
variety of new and surprising spectacles which are exhibited on
the occasion ; many foreigners also from the neighbouring, as
well as the more distant nations, are attracted by the liberality
of the monarch, who rewards those who excel in industry, or
produce new inventions, so that nothing that is attempted in
other parts of the world can approach or be compared with the
sumptuous magnificence of this anniversary.

At one of these festivals, after the most skilful and ingenious
persons of the country, together with the foreigners who had
repaired to Schiraz, where the court was then assembled, had
presented the king and his nobles with all the various spectacles
intended for their entertainment, an Indian appeared and pre-