THE ENCHANTED HORSE OF 

 FIROUZ SCHAH 



On the first day of the year, which is called Nev- 

 rouz, the king of Persia held a great feast in his 

 palace, to which, according to the custom of the 

 country, he invited every man in the world who 

 had perfected any useful or curious invention. 

 As a matter of course, his halls were crowded 

 with ingenious gentlemen from every country of 

 Asia, each more anxious to exhibit the product of 

 his mind and hand than to partake of the delicate 

 viands with which his tables were loaded. Here 

 were men with improved mouse-traps ; men with 

 new kinds of sandals ; men who were on the point 

 of discovering perpetual motion ; alchemists with 

 bottles of the precious elixir of life; authors, 

 threadbare and penniless, who thought they had 

 written something new; schoolmasters with ma- 

 chines for pouring learning into the brains of 

 their pupils ; and crowds of enchanters and char- 

 latans, every one of whom had discovered some- 

 thing wherewith he would finally upset the uni- 



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