The princess of Bengal continued to talk wildly, and shew other marks of a disordered mind, next day and the following; so that the sultan was induced to send for all the physicians belonging to his court, to consult them upon her disease, and to ask if they could cure her.
The physicians all agreed that there were several sorts and degrees of this disorder, some curable and others not; and told the sultan, that they could not judge of the princess of Bengal’s unless they might see her; upon which the sultan ordered the eunuchs to introduce them into the princess’s chamber, one after another, according to their rank.
The princess, who foresaw what would happen, and feared, that if she let the physicians feel her pulse, the least experienced of them would soon know that she was in good health, and that her madness was only feigned, flew into such a well-dissembled rage and passion, that she appeared ready to injure those who came near her; so none of them durst approach her.
Some who pretended to be more skilful than the rest, and boasted of judging of diseases only by sight, ordered her some potions, which she made the less difficulty to take, well knowing she could be sick or well at pleasure, and that they could do her no harm.
When the sultan of Cashmeer saw that his court physicians could not cure her, he called in the most celebrated and experienced of the city, who had no better success. Afterwards he sent for the most famous in the kingdom, who met with no better reception than the others from the princess, and what they prescribed had no effect. Afterwards he dispatched expresses to the courts of neighbouring sultans, with the princess’s case, to be distributed among the most famous physicians, with a promise of a munificent reward to any of them who should come and effect her cure.
Various physicians arrived from all parts, and tried their skill; but none could boast of better success than their predecessors, or of restoring the princess’s faculties, since it was a case that did not depend on medicine, but on the will of the princess herself.
During this interval Firoze Shaw, disguised in the habit of a dervish, travelled through many provinces and towns, involved in grief; and endured excessive fatigue, not knowing which way to direct his course, or whether he might not be pursuing the very opposite road from what he ought, in order to hear the tidings he was in search of. He made diligent inquiry after her at every place he came to; till at last passing through a city of Hindoostan, he heard the people talk much of a princess of Bengal, who ran mad on the day of the intended celebration of her nuptials with the sultan of Cashmeer. At the name of the princess of Bengal, and supposing that there could exist no other princess of Bengal than her upon whose account he had undertaken his travels, he hastened towards the kingdom of Cashmeer, and upon his arrival at the capital took up his lodging at a khan, where the same day he was informed of ihe story of the princess, and the fate of the Hindoo magician, which he had so richly deserved. From the circumstances, the prince was convinced that she was the beloved object he had sought so long.


