Page:Ali Baba, or, The forty thieves (2).pdf/2



the country of Persia, there lived two brothers, the sons of a poor man; the one was named Cassim, and the other Ali Baba; Cassim, the elder, married a wife with a considerable fortune, and lived at his ease, in a handsome house, with plenty of servants; but the wife of Ali Baba was as poor as himself, they dwelt in a mean cottage in the suburbs of the city, and he maintained his family by cutting wood in a neighbouring forest.

One day when Ali Baba was in the forest and prepared to load his asses with the wood he had cut, he saw a troop of horsemen approaching towards him. He had often heard of robbers who infested that forest, and in great fright, he hastily climbed a large tree, which stood near the foot of a rock, and hid himself among the branches. The horsemen soon galloped up to the rock, where they all dismounted. Ali Baba counted forty of them, and he could not