Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/228

On Weakness and Old Age

day, in the pride of youth, I had travelled hard, and arrived, perfectly exhausted, in the evening at the foot of an acclivity. A weak old man, who had likewise been following the caravan, came and asked me why I was sleeping, this not being the place for it. I replied: "How am I to travel, having lost the use of my feet?"

He said: "Hast thou not heard that it is better to walk gently, and to halt now and then, than to run and to become exhausted? O thou who desirest to reach the station, take my advice and learn patience. An Arab horse gallops twice in a race; a camel ambles gently night and day."