Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/64

 cotton, but no one would buy it from him on the ground that it was not properly cleaned. In the meanwhile he saw in the bazar a goldsmith selling gold, which ho had purified by heating it, and he saw it taken by a customer. When the stupid creature saw that, he threw the cotton into the fire in order to purify it, and when it was burnt up, the people laughed at him.

" You have heard, prince, this story of the cotton-grower, now hear the story of the men who cut down the palm-trees."

Story of the Foolish Villagers who cut down the palm-trees.:—Some foolish villagers were summoned by the king's officers, and set to work to gather some dates in accordance with an order from the king's court.* They, perceiving that it was very easy to gather the dates of one date-palm that had tumbled down of itself, cut down all the date-palms in their village. And after they had laid them low, they gathered from them their whole crop of dates, and then they raised them up and planted them again, but they did not succeed in making them grow. And then, when they brought the dates, they were not rewarded, but on the contrary punished with a fine by the king, who had heard of the cutting down of the trees. †

" I have told you this joke about the dates, now I am going to tell you about the looking for treasure."

Story of the Treasure-finder who was blinded.:— A certain king took to himself a treasure-finder. And the wicked minister of that king had both the eyes of the man, who was able to find the places where treasure was deposited, torn out, in order that he might not run away anywhere. The consequence was that, being blind, he was incapacitated from seeing the indications of treasure in the earth, whether he ran away or remained; and people, seeing that, ‡ laughed at the silly minister.

" You have heard of the searching for treasure, now hear about the eating of salt."

Story of the Fool and the Salt.:— There was once on a time an impenetrably stupid man living in a village.§ He was once taken home by a friend who lived in the city,