830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 



THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON;* 



OR, 



TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF HAKIM BEN SHEYTAN. 



Translated by F. L. 0. 



CHAPTEE II. 



The grace of Allah be with all who walk in his ways, and with all 

 those who read my words and ponder in their hearts the wonders by 

 him to me revealed ! And the peace. 



There is a mountain in Monghistan which forms the boundary 

 between the hunting-grounds and the cultivated lands, and, two hours 

 after we had left the rock-tombs, we passed the last brook at the foot 

 of that mountain and entered an open hill-country, with a few inclosed 

 fields here and there, but without a drop of drinking-water. The sun 

 went down before we had reached a human habitation, and, as the sky 

 was almost cloudless, we decided to camp under a hedge of mulberry- 

 trees, whose boughs would shelter us from the night-dew. There was 

 no house in sight, but, walking along the hedge in hopes of assuaging 

 my thirst with a few berries, I saw a light that seemed to flicker in a 

 grove on the opposite bank of a ravine. The Karman had seen it, too, 

 for I saw him climb down the rocks with our water-skin under his arm. 

 But he soon returned. " It was no house," said he. " It was the camp- 

 fire of a traveler, a vagrant, who had made his bivouac in that grove/' 



" Is he a Monakee ? " I asked. 



"Yes, sir," said my guide. "You can smell him without crossing 

 this ravine. He is burning pest- weed, f to befuddle himself, after the 

 vile fashion of these people." 



I instantly put on my sandals and clambered down the cliffs. The 

 presage had been fulfilled. # I had dreamed that I should see the first 

 Monakee in the night. The grove consisted of a copse of tamarinds, 

 with an undergrowth of thorn-trees ; and I had already made my way 

 to the upper line of bushes, when I stopped and stood spell-bound at 

 the sight that met my eyes. The fire rose from a pile of brush-wood, 

 under a large tamarind, on the top of the hillock, and at the foot of 

 the tree sat a creature with the form of a human being, but with the 

 face of a hog-baboon. J His eyes were small and furtive, his beard a 

 mere fringe of bristles, and his nose, which was bluish-red, had the 

 shape of a cucumber.* He wore neither a turban nor a sword-belt, 



* Copyright by D. Applcton & Company, 1882. \ Yerba-pcsta, pcst-plant, or stink-weed. 

 X Schweins-ravian, the Papio Anubis. * " En forma dc un pepino." 



