in your safety, and hath sent to you this roll of paper, desiring that each of you shall write a line upon it; for the King had a Wezir who was an eminent calligraphist, and he is dead, and the King hath sworn that he will not appoint any person to his office who cannot write equally well. Though in the form of an ape, I arose and snatched the paper from their hands; upon which, fearing that I would tear it and throw it into the sea, they cried out against me, and would have killed me; but I made signs to them that I would 'write, and the captain said to them, Suffer him to write, and if he scribble we will turn him away; but if he write well I will adopt him as my son; for I have never seen a more intelligent ape. So I took the pen, and demanded the ink, and wrote in an epistolary hand this couplet:
Fame hath recorded the virtues of the noble; but no one hath been able to reckon thine.
May God not deprive mankind of such a father; for thou art the parent of every excellence.
Then, in a more formal, large hand, I wrote the following verses:
There is no writer that shall not perish; but what his hand hath written endureth ever.
Write, therefore, nothing but what will please thee when thou shalt see it on the day of resurrection.
Two other specimens I wrote, in two different and smaller hands, and returned the paper to the memluks, who took it back to the King; and when he saw what was written upon it, the hand of no one pleased him excepting mine; and he said to his attendants, Go to the author of this hand-writing, put upon him this dress, and mount him upon a mule, and conduct him, with the band of music before him, to my presence. On hearing this order, they smiled; and the King was angry with them, and said, How is it that I give you an order, and ye laugh at me? They answered, O King, we laugh not at thy words, but because he who wrote this is an ape, and not a son of Adam: he is with the captain of the ship newly arrived.
The King was astonished at their words; he shook with delight, and said, I would purchase this ape. He then sent some messengers to the ship, with the mule and the dress of honour, saying to them,
