Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/50

26 belief. Hereupon they accused him to Nimrtd, who had a great furnace built, filled with fuel and set on fire. He then ordered Ibrahim to be thrown into the fire. The heat, however, was so great that nobody dared venture near enough to carry out the command. Then Iblis showed Nimrid how to construct a machine by means of which the young martyr, bound hand and foot, was hurled into the flames. But Allah preserved him, and the furnace was to him as cool and pleasant as a rose-garden watered by fountains. He came out of the fire unhurt. Nimriad then declared that he must either see this God of Ibrahim’s or kill Him. He therefore had a lofty tower built, from the top of which he hoped to get _ into heaven. When the tower had reached the height — of seventy stories, each story being seventy dra’as high, Allah confounded the speech of the workmen, Seventy-three languages were thus suddenly spoken all at one and the same time and in the same place, causing great babbling, wherefore the tower was called Babel. Pilgrims from Mosil and Baghdad declare that its ruins exist in their country to this day. Foiled in this attempt, Nimrid constructed a flying-machine, as simple as it was ingenious. It was a box with one lid at the top and another at the bottom. Four eagles which had been specially trained, and had attained their full size and strength, were tied one to each of the four corners of the box; then an upright pole was fixed on to the chest, and to this pole a large piece of raw meat was fastened. The birds flew upwards in order to get at the meat, and in so doing carried the box, into which Nimrad