Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/126

94 "Do you want to go into the bag?" asked the old woman. "Sit down on that stone and tell us where you have been."

"In Africa, mother!" he answered. "I have been chasing the lion with the Hottentots in Kaffirland! What grass there is on those plains! as green as an olive. The gnu was dancing about, and the ostriches ran races with me, but I am still the fastest. I went to the desert with its yellow sand. It looks like the bottom of the sea. I met a caravan! They were killing their last camel to get water to drink, but it wasn't much they got. The sun was blazing above, and the sand burning below. There were no limits to the outstretched desert. Then I burrowed into the fine loose sand and whirled it up in great columns—that was a dance! You should have seen how despondently the dromedaries stood, and the merchant drew his caftan over his head. He threw himself down before me as if I had been Allah, his god. Now they are buried, and there is a pyramid of sand over them all; when I blow it away, sometime the sun will bleach their bones, and then travellers will see that people have been there before, otherwise you would hardly believe it in the desert."

"Then you have only been doing harm!" said the mother. "Into the bag you go!" And before he knew where he was she had the Southwind by the waist and in the bag; it rolled about on the ground, but she sat down upon it and then it had to be quiet.

"Your sons are lively fellows!" said the Prince.

"Yes, indeed," she said; "but I can master them. Here comes the fourth."

It was the Eastwind, and he was dressed like a Chinaman.

"Oh, have you come from that quarter?" said the mother. "I thought you had been in the Garden of Paradise."

"I am only going there to-morrow!" said the Eastwind. "It will be a hundred years to-morrow since I have been there. I have just come from China, where I danced round the porcelain