years after he found it in a bird’s nest (Supp.  Nights, vol. ii. p. 260 and p. 263).—­And, not to multiply examples, a similar incident occurs in the “Katha Sarit Sagara,” Book ix. ch. 54, where a merchant named Samudrasura is shipwrecked and contrives to reach the land, where he perceives the corpse of a man, round the loins of which is a cloth with a knot in it.  On unfastening the cloth he finds in it a necklace studded with jewels.  The merchant proceeds towards a city called Kalasapuri, carrying the necklace in his hand.  Overpowered by the heat, he sits down in a shady place and falls asleep.  The necklace is recognised by some passing policemen as that of the king’s daughter, and the merchant is at once taken before the king and accused of having stolen it.  While the merchant is being examined, a kite swoops down and carries off the necklace.  Presently a voice from heaven declares that the merchant is innocent, explains how the necklace came into his possession, and orders the king to dismiss him with honour.  This celestial testimony in favour of the accused satisfies the king, who gives the merchant much wealth and sends him on his way.  The rest of the story is as follows:  “And after he had crossed the sea, he travelled with a caravan, and one day, at evening time, he reached a wood.  The caravan encamped in the wood for the night, and while Samudrasura was awake a powerful host of bandits attacked it.  While the bandits were massacring the members of the caravan, Samudrasura left his wares and fled, and climbed up a banyan-tree without being discovered.  The host of bandits departed, after they had carried off all the wealth, and the merchant spent that night there, perplexed with fear and distracted with grief.  In the morning he cast his eves towards the top of the tree, and saw, as fate would have it, what looked like the light of a lamp, trembling among the leaves.  And in his astonishment he climbed up the tree and saw a kite’s nest, in which there was a heap of glittering priceless jewelled ornaments.  He took them all out of it, and found among the ornaments that necklace which he had found in Svarnadvipa and the kite had carried off.  He obtained from that nest unlimited wealth, and descending from the tree, he went off delighted, and reached in course of time his own city of Harshapura.  There the merchant Samudrasura remained, enjoying himself to his heart’s content, with his family, free from the desire of any other wealth.”

There is nothing improbable—­at all events, nothing impossible—­in the History of Khwajah Hasan al-Habbal.  That he should lose the two sums of money in the manner described is quite natural, and the incidents carry with them the moral:  “Always take your wife into your confidence” (but the Khwajah was a Muslim), notwithstanding the great good luck which afterwards befell, and which, after all, was by mere chance.  There is nothing improbable in the finding of the turban with the money intact in the bird’s nest, but that this should occur while the Khwajah’s benefactors were his guests is—­well, very extraordinary indeed!  As to the pot of bran—­why, some little license must be allowed a story-teller, that is all that need be said!  The story from beginning to end is a most charming one, and will continue to afford pleasure to old and young—­to “generations yet unborn.”