THE ENCHANTED HORSE. 449

was only feigned, as soon as they made their appearance, began
to shew such violent marks of aversion, endeavouring to tear
their faces if they came near, that not one had the courage to
expose himself to her fury.

During this period, Prince Firouz Schah, disguised under the
habit of a dervise, had traversed several provinces, and visited
the principal cities in each province, in search of his beloved
princess. Attending earnestly to the passing news of the day in
each place he visited, he at length arrived at a large city in the
Indies, where the general conversation seemed to turn on a
princess of Bengal, who had lost her senses on the very day
which the sultan of Cashmire had appointed for the celebration
of his nuptials with her. The name of the princess of Bengal
attracted his notice ; and concluding that she must be the person
he was in search of, he determined, on the slight information
he could obtain concerning her, to bend his way immediately to
the capital of the kingdom of Cashmire. On his arrival in this
city he took up his abode in a khan, where he learnt on that
very day the whole history of the princess of Bengal, and of the
deservedly tragical end of the criminal Indian, who had brought
her on the enchanted horse.

The prince of Persia having obtained all the necessary infor-
mation on these various circumstances, ordered a physician’s
dress to be made for him on the next day ; and thus disguised,
with the long beard he had suffered to grow during his journey,
he was supposed to be of that profession as he walked along the
streets. The impatience he felt to see his princess would not
allow him to defer his appearance at the palace of the sultan,
where he asked to speak tc one of the officers. He was con-
ducted to the chief of the ushers, and addressing himself to
him, he said that it might possibly be considered as great
temerity in him to present himself as a physician, who wished
to attempt the cure of the princess, after the court physicians
had tried without success ; but that he flattered himself, by
means of certain specific remedies, that he should effect a cure.
The chief of the officers then presented him to the sultan of
Cashmire under the disguise and appearance of a physician ;
and the sultan, without wasting any time in superfluous conver-
sation, acquainted him with the disorder of the princess of

Bengal- and that she could not endure the sight of a physician
2F