ISO 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
respecting not even the Sultan himself, with loud 
invectives, and coarse treasonable abuse. Inflated 
with the fumes of wine, and the still more intoxi- 
cating vapours of conceit, the leader of the party 
took occasion to introduce the subject of the Zuffur 
Nameh, the history of Taimour, and proceeded to 
recite that passage in the early stage of the con- 
queror’s fortunes, in which he is described as taking 
from each of his warlike followers, — at that particu- 
lar time only forty in number — a brace of arrows, 
and, having bound them all together in a bundle,* to 
have passed them alternately to every individual, 
with a desire that each should use his utmost efforts 
to break them. When each had accordingly made 
the attempt without success, Taimour took the 
sheaf of arrows asunder, and returned to each person 
his own, which upon trial were, of course, easily 
snapped in two. Whereupon the renowned hero 
desired them to remember that as long as they, like 
the bundle of arrows, remained united, and firmly 
and faithfully bound to each other, few as they were 
in number, nothing would ever be able to put them 
down, and success and victory would inseparably 
attend them in all their undertakings. And this 
was, indeed, exactly confirmed by the event ; for by 
making this simple and striking lesson the rule of 
their conduct, they finally rendered themselves 
masters of the fairest part of the habitable globe. 
* This is evidently one with iEsop’s fable of The Old Man and 
his Bundle of Sticks, 
