My father left me a considerable estate, the best part of which I spent in riotous living during my youth; but I perceived my error, and reflected that riches were perishable, and quickly consumed by such ill managers as myself.
I was scarcely past my infancy when the king my father perceived that I was endowed with a great deal of sense, and spared nothing in improving it; he employed all the men in his dominions that excelled in science and art to be constantly about me.
The following story is one of the strangest that ever was heard. Two black dogs long dwelt with me in my house, and were very affectionately disposed towards me.
Soon after his marriage Prince Camaralzaman dreamt one night that he saw his father Schahzaman on his death-bed, and heard him speak thus to his attendants:
About twenty days' sail from the coast of Persia, in the Islands of the Children of Khaledan, there lived a king who had an only son, Prince Camaralzaman.
Prince Houssain would not honour the feast with his presence; he could scarcely endure to see the princess in the arms of Prince Ali, who, he said, did not deserve her better or love her more than himself.
The Princess Nouronnihar was the daughter of the younger brother of the sultan, to whom the sultan in his lifetime allowed a considerable revenue. But that prince had not been married long before he died, and left the princess very young.
Young Prince Beder was brought up and educated in the palace under the care of the King and Queen of Persia
There once was a king of Persia, who at the beginning of his reign had distinguished himself by many glorious and successful conquests, and had afterwards enjoyed such profound peace and tranquillity as rendered him the happiest of monarchs.
Once upon a time the Bodhisatta was a Pigeon, and lived in a nest-basket which a rich man's cook had hung up in the kitchen, in order to earn merit by it.
A very wealthy old man, imagining that he was on the point of death, sent for his sons and divided his property among them.
One day Sun, Moon, and Wind went out to dine with their uncle and aunts Thunder and Lightning. Their mother (one of the most distant Stars you see far up in the sky) waited alone for her children's return.
One day a young prince was out practising archery with the son of his father's chief vizier, when one of the arrows accidentally struck the wife of a merchant, who was walking about in an upper room of a house close by.
As a certain fisherwoman passed by a palace crying her fish, the queen appeared at one of the windows and beckoned her to come near and show what she had. At that moment a very big fish jumped about in the bottom of the basket.
There was once upon a time a King who had no children. Now this King went and laid him down to rest at a place where four roads met, so that every one who passed had to step over him.
In a country were seven daughters of poor parents, who used to come daily to play under the shady trees in the King's garden with the gardener's daughter; and daily she used to say to them, "When I am married I shall have a son.
There was once a farmer who suffered much at the hands of a money-lender. Good harvests, or bad, the farmer was always poor, the money-lender rich.
At the same time, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, the future Buddha was born one of a peasant family; and when he grew up, he gained his living by tilling the ground.
Once there lived a great Raja, whose name was Salabhan, and he had a Queen, by name Lona, who, though she wept and prayed at many a shrine, had never a child to gladden her eyes.
In a certain village there lived ten cloth merchants, who always went about together.
