Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/175

Story CXVI injunction of the wise, who have said, that although food is distributed [by predestination] the acquisition of it depends on exertion, and that although a calamity may be decreed by fate, it is incumbent [on men] to show the gates by which it may enter. Although daily food may come unawares, it is reasonable to seek it out of doors; and though no one dies without the decree of fate, thou must not rush into the jaws of a dragon.

"As I am at present able to cope with a mad elephant, and to wrestle with a furious lion, it is proper, O father, that I should travel abroad, because I have no longer the endurance to suffer misery. When a man has fallen from his place and station, why should he eat more grief? All the horizons are his place! At night every rich man goes to an inn; the Dervish has his inn where the night overtakes him."

After saying this, he asked for the good wishes of his father, took leave of him, departed, and said to himself: "A skilful man, when his luck does not favour him, goes to a place where people know not his name."

He reached the banks of a water, the force of which was such that it knocked stones against each other, and its roaring was heard to a Fursang's distance. A dreadful water, in which even aquatic birds were not safe; the smallest wave would whirl off a millstone from its bank.

He beheld a crowd of people, each person sitting with a coin of money at the crossing-place, intent on passage. The youth's hands of payment being tied, he opened the tongue of laudation, and although he supplicated the people greatly, they paid no attention, and said: "No violence can be done to anyone without money, but if thou hast money, thou hast no need of force."

An unkind boatman laughed at him, and said: "If thou hast