154 MR. WILLIAM E. A. AXON ON THE 



Moses said, ' If I ask thee concerning any thing hereafter, 

 suffer me not to accompany thee. Now hast thou received 

 an excuse from me.^ They went forwards, therefore, until 

 they came to the inhabitants of a certain city : and they 

 asked food of the inhabitants thereof; but they refused to 

 receive them. And tliey found therein a wall which was 

 ready to fall down ; and he set it upright. Whereupon 

 Moses said unto him, ^ If thou wouldest, thou mightest 

 have received a reward for it.' He answered, ' This shall 

 be a separation between me and thee : but I will first 

 declare unto thee the signification of that which thou 

 couldest not bear with patience. The vessel belonged to 

 certain poor men who did their business in the sea ; and I 

 was minded to render it unserviceable because there was a 

 king behind them who took every sound ship by force. 

 As to the youth, his parents were true believers, and we 

 feared lest he, being an unbeliever, should oblige them to 

 suflPer his perverseness and ingratitude : wherefore we 

 desired that their *Lord might give them a more righteous 

 child in exchange for him, and one more afiectionate 

 towards them. And the wall belonged to two orphan 

 youths in the city, and.^in it was a treasure hidden which 

 belonged to them ; and their father was a righteous man : 

 and thy Lord was pleased that they should attain their 

 full age, and take forth their treasure, through the mercy 

 of thy Lord. And I did not what thou hast seen of my 

 own will, but by God's direction. This is the inter- 

 pretation of that which thou couldest not bear with 

 patience ' " ■^. 



This is the oldest literary form of ParnelFs ' Hermit.' 

 It may well be supposed that the Arabian Prophet borrowed 

 the beautiful legend, as he did many other things, from a 



* Koran, Sale's translation, chap, xviii. Dunlop's ' History of Fiction,' 

 p. 292. 



