miserable stipend of wages which they receive from
their masters. The Gangaridian shepherds are all
born equal, and own the innumerable herds which
cover their vast fields and subsist on the abundant
verdure. These flocks are never killed. It is a horrid
crime, in that favored country, to kill and eat a fellow
creature. Their wool is finer and more brilliant than
the finest silk, and constitutes the greatest traffic of
the East. Besides, the land of the Gangarids produces all that can flatter the desires of man. Those
large diamonds that Amazan had the honor of presenting to you are from a mine that belongs to him. A
unicorn, on which you saw him mounted, is the usual
animal the Gangarids ride upon. It is the finest, the
proudest, most terrible, and at the same time most
gentle animal that ornaments the earth. A hundred
Gangarids, with as many unicorns, would be sufficient to disperse innumerable armies. Two centuries
ago a king of India was mad enough to attempt to
conquer this nation. He appeared, followed by ten
thousand elephants and a million of warriors. The
unicorns pierced the elephants, just as I have seen
upon your table beads pierced in golden brochets.
The warriors fell under the sabres of the Gangarids
like crops of rice mowed by the people of the East.
The king was taken prisoner, with upward of six
thousand men. He was bathed in the salutary water
of the Ganges, and followed the regimen of the
country, which consists only of vegetables, of which
nature has there been amazingly liberal to nourish
Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/215
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The Princess of Babylon.
189