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05

AN ORIENTAL LEGEND

1. A king, grown old in glory and renown,

With wisdom wished his happy reign to crown.

Feeling the years turn white upon his head,

He thought upon his end, and thus he said:

“Three sons I have, strong types of sturdy youth,

Bred in all honour, manliness, and truth;

Honest and brave are they, I know it well;

But traits there are in all that none may tell.

I´11 test them, therefore; for I fain would know

Which one shall rule the best when I must go.”

2. Thereon he sent a slave to call his sons

Into his presence. Strong and manly ones

They surely were, to glad a father´s sight,

And mind him of his spring-time´s manly might.

To whom the king: “My sons, the time draws near

When I, your sire, shall be no longer here,

And I would know which of you I may trust

To wield the sceptre when my hands are dust;

And to that end I make you this request,

Which of my three sons loves his father best?”

3. Then spake the eldest: “Sire, my love for thee

Is deeper, broader, greater than the sea,

Vast as it is, that wets thy kingdom´s shore.

Such is my love for thee, my sire, and more.”

The second then: “My father and my king,

There is not any yet created thing

In the whole universe , below, above,

To mark the scope and measure of my love.”

The youngest simply said: “I cannot tell

Thee more than this, I love my father well.”

4. The king dismissed them with a tender word,

And sat and pondered well what he had heard;

Then called his minister, and to him spake:

“My lord, a pilgrimage I fain would make

To far-famed Mecca . That I may atone

For sins unpardoned, I will go alone,

Barefooted and bareheaded; and if I

By Allah shall be called upon to die

While on this pilgrimage, ´tis my command

That my three sons together rule the land.”

5. A year went by, and yellow were the leaves,

The ripened grain was gathered into sheaves,

And all made ready for the harvest sport,

When through the kingdom—city, camp, and court,

Seaport and hamlet—the sad news was sped,

That the wise ruler and just king was dead.

Loved as a monarch tender, brave, and true,

His people mourned him deeply as his due.

His sons were told the words the king had said,

And reigned together in their father´s stead.

6. The calendar had marked another year,

And on the drooping stalk the full-grown ear

Through golden husk and silken tassel showed,

When wearily along the dusty road

A beggar slowly moved towards the town.

Outside the open gate he sat him down

And rested. Suddenly his thoughts were bent

Upon a man near by, with garments rent,

Who sighed, and wept, and beat upon his breast,

And ever made this moan, “I loved him best.”

7. “Friend, ” said the beggar, “tell, if I may know,

What is the cause and secret of thy woe.

Allah hath certain cure for every ill;

Thine may He soften!” For a moment still

The other sat; then, with fresh tears, he said:

“Great is my loss. I mourn the king that´s dead.

Ah! never more shall men see such a one.

He was my father, I his oldest son.”

And then he beat once more upon his breast,

And rent his clothes, and cried, “I loved him best.”

8. The beggar sighed. “Such love must Allah prize.

Thy brothers? mourn they also in this wise?”

“Not so, ” the mourner said. “The next in age

His grief with other thoughts did soon assuage ;

With horse and hounds his hours are spent in sport,

To the great shame and sorrow of the court.

The youngest bears the pains and cares of state;

Works out our father´s plans; to low and great

Meteth out justice with impartial hand,

And is beloved and honoured in the land.”

9. The beggar left the son on grief intent,

And straightway to the court his footsteps bent;

Cast of his beggar´s clothes before the throne

And, clad in purple, proudly claimed his own;

Cried, in a voice that made the arches ring,

“Hear ye, my people! As I am your king,

My power, my crown, my sceptre, and my throne

Go to my youngest son, and him alone! —

Son of my heart, I fold thee to my breast;

Who doth his father´s work loves him the best.”

WORD SPELLING

WORD EXERCISE

1. Give the meaning and explain the connection between pound (various uses), ponderous, and ponder .

2. Make sentences showing the uses of the words tract and trace, in various meanings, and give other words from the same root.

3. Show the various uses of the words sire and sir, and their connection with senior . j8lzYMC1ISLQL79fSAX3iMzY3QYUOkSOYX3u06IKslEax6FnMnJFMwJBo8T4aBrK



06

A HIPPOPOTAMUS HUNT

I

1. After a journey of several days across a tract of country near the river Nile, we camped for the night in a patch of scrub a little larger and greener than those surrounding it. We were then about sixty miles to the south-west of Kassala . Next day we made a slight deviation in our journey, in order to visit an Arab encampment. It proved to be the camp of a hunting party.They had journeyed to the “great river” to get hippopotamuses´ skins, which were to be made into shields, or to be sold at Kassala.

2. After the sheik had offered us some coffee and food, the conversation turned into the one channel of interest to this race—the use of arms and the management of the horse. Among the weapons shown us was the spear used in hunting the hippopotamus. It had a large, heavy head of soft steel about eighteen inches long, fitted with a single stout barb.The shaft was a light bamboo rod about ten feet long. Attached to the iron head was a light but very strong rope twenty feet long; and at the free end of the rope was a float, shaped like an oval football and about the samesize, made of a peculiarly light wood which they called ambatch.

3. “We will now show you the hippopotamus, ” said the sheik.

In a few minutes about thirty of us were on horseback. We pressed on to the river. The current ran strongly in the middle, and the banks were irregular, as if violently washed by the action of the great spring floods. In the coves were quiet pools studded with rocks. We left our horses in care of some of the men. The great hunter of the party, Jali by name, then put on his hunting costume, which means that he discarded most of his clothes, and braced a leathern belt around his waist. He must have been seventy years of age. He was more than six feet high, and as straight as an arrow. With his grey hair and bronzed skin, he was a picture worth looking at.

4. Seizing a spear, he examined it in every part. Then he withdrew the bamboo shaft from the head, thrust the head through his girdle, and coiled the rope on his left arm, with the float over his shoulder. Thusequipped , and using the shaft as a pole, he leaped from boulder to boulder with the activity of a boy, until he reached the deep-water entrance to a large pool.As he leaped to the last boulder, two hippopotamuses arose from its shadow with a snort and a rush and swam rapidly through the passage into the open river.

5. “They were awake; we were too soon after their meal. But I wished to be certain of having time to find one to-day, ” said the sheik, as we proceeded to another pool about half a mile below. As we clambered over some rocks, and through a gorge, at the bottom of which was a small pool, I saw the immense head of a hippopotamus lying close to a perpendicular rock that formed a wall twenty feet long, running at right angles to the river. The old man, Jali, had been walking along just in front of me; and as I touched him, and pointed down to the animal´s head, the gravity of his face was lifted as a curtain rises: he looked forty years younger in an instant. Hurriedly telling us in Arabic to halt and remain quiet, he climbed up the side of the gorge again and disappeared.

6. In about five minutes the sheik touched my hand, and directed his eyes to the middle of the river. There, in the rushing current, was the old man, quietly carried along by it, with only half his head above water, and the large float bobbing about in his wake . As he neared the jutting wall of rock, he could not have been thirty feet from the half-asleep river-horse, and his head sank lower and lower until it was almost submerged .

7. “Surely he, an old man, can never breast that current to gain the rock, ” I said in a whisper to the chief. But the sheik only smiled, and made a motion to be silent. As the veteran hunter passed the end of the rock, he turned on his side, and after a fierce strugglewith the water, gained a footing on the lower part of the rock, where, hidden from our view, he rested until he had regained his breath.

8. Then his hand appeared on the top, next his head, and then, by sheer muscular force marvellous in so old a man, he raised himnone to the very top of the rock. He fitted the shaft of the spear into the head; cast clear the rope and float; rose slowly to his full height, his long, sinewy arm raised; and advanced to the edge of the pool. The sun behind him suddenly cleared a large belt of cloud that for a few minutes had obscured it, and cast his shadow forward right in front of the hippopotamus. Slowly the animal sank. The old Arab did not move; no statue of bronze was ever more rigid than this old river-king, with his dripping body and upraised spear, just risen from the fl ood

WORD SPELLING

WORD EXERCISE

1. Give a list of nouns in -ity, formed from adjectives, as activity .

2. Make sentences showing the use of the words Arab, Arabic, and Arabian, as adjectives.

3. Give a list of words formed from the stem of submerge, with various prefi xes and terminations j8lzYMC1ISLQL79fSAX3iMzY3QYUOkSOYX3u06IKslEax6FnMnJFMwJBo8T4aBrK

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