Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/285

261 mounted and followed him. When he entered the house, he saw the bales packed ready and asked what they were; whereupon his wife told him what had passed between Alaeddin and the young merchants and he said, ‘O my son, may God curse foreign travel! Verily, the Prophet (whom God bless and preserve) hath said, “It is of a man’s good fortune that he have his livelihood in his own land;” and it was said of the ancients, “Leave travel, though but for a mile.”’ Then he said to his son, ‘Art thou indeed resolved to travel and wilt thou not turn back from it?’ ‘Needs must I journey to Baghdad with merchandise,’ answered Alaeddin, ‘else will I put off my clothes and don a dervish’s habit and go a-wandering over the world.’ Quoth Shemseddin, ‘I am no lackgood, but have great plenty of wealth and with me are stuffs and merchandise befitting every country in the world.’ Then he showed him his goods and amongst the rest, forty bales ready packed, with the price, a thousand dinars, written on each, and said to him, ‘Take these forty loads, together with those thy mother gave thee, and set out under the safeguard of God the Most High. But, O my son, I fear for thee a certain wood in thy way, called the Lion’s Copse, and a valley called the Valley of Dogs, for there lives are lost without mercy.’ ‘How so?’ asked Alaeddin. ‘Because of a Bedouin highwayman, hight Ajlan,’ answered his father, ‘who harbours there.’ Quoth Alaeddin, ‘Fortune is with God; if any part in it be mine, no harm will befall me.’ Then they rode to the cattle market, where a muleteer alighted from his mule and kissing the Provost’s hand, said to him, ‘O my lord, by Allah, it is long since thou hast employed me to carry merchandise for thee!’ ‘Every time hath its fortune and its men,’ answered Shemseddin; ‘and may God have mercy on him who said:

An old man went walking the ways of the world, So bowed and so bent that his beard swept his knee.