36 FISHES OF FANCY. 



Well-born arrives at her rewards, and from the story of 

 the talkative tortoise that Lord Buddha admonished the 

 loquacious king. 



In Mahomedan tradition there is much fish-lore of the 

 most curious kind, and commentators on the Koran vie 

 with the Talmudists in the grotesqueness of invention. 

 As a single example, I will take " The fish of Moses and 

 Joshua," which, read irreverently, is really only a delightful 

 explanation of flat-fish having so much more meat on one 

 side than the other. Moses and Joshua ate the other half. 

 The legend runs thus : — 



" Moses was asked who was the most knowing of men, to which he 

 answered, ' I '; whereupon God blamed him for this, because he did 

 not refer the knowledge thereof to Him. And God said unto him by 

 revelation, ' Verily I have a servant at the place where the two seas 

 meet, and he is more knowing than thou.' Moses said, ' O my Lord, 

 and how shall I meet him?' He answered, 'Thou shalt take a fish, 

 and put it into a measuring vessel, and where thou shalt lose the fish, 

 there is he.' So he took a fish, and put it into a vessel. Then he 

 departed, and Joshua the son of Nun departed with him, until they 

 came to a rock, where they laid down their heads and slept. And the 

 fish became agitated in the vessel, and escaped from it and fell into 

 the sea, and it made its way in the sea by a hollow passage, God 

 withholding the water from the fish so that it became like a vault over 

 it, and when Moses' companion awoke, he forgot to inform him of the 

 fish." 



But on their way they remembered it, and turned back 

 to find it, and, coming to the rock again, there they met the 

 man who was wiser than Moses. Now the question arose, 

 What was the fish ? and the answer was supplied by Hamed 

 of Andalusia, who states that he saw in the Mediterranean 

 " the fish of Moses and Joshua " : — 



" It is of the breed of that fried fish a half of which Moses and 

 Joshua ate and the other half God revived. It is about a span long. 

 On its one side it has bristles and its belly is covered with a thin skin. 



