Hieroglyphic Tales | Page 7

joy; the prince of Quifferiquimini
was buried in spite of his appeal to the law of nations; and the youngest
princess went distracted, and was shut up in a madhouse, calling out
day and night for a husband with three legs.

TALE III.
_The Dice-Box. A Fairy Tale._
_Translated from the French Translation of the Countess DAUNOIS,
for the Entertainment of Miss CAROLINE CAMPBELL._ [_Eldest
daughter of lord William Campbell; she lived with her aunt the
countess of Ailesbury._]

There was a merchant of Damascus named Aboulcasem, who had an
only daughter called Pissimissi, which signifies _the waters of Jordan_;
because a fairy foretold at her birth that she would be one of Solomon's
concubines. Azaziel, the angel of death, having transported
Aboulcasem to the regions of bliss, he had no fortune to bequeath to his
beloved child but the shell of a pistachia-nut drawn by an elephant and
a ladybird. Pissimissi, who was but nine years old, and who had been
been kept in great confinement, was impatient to see the world; and no
sooner was the breath out of her father's body, than she got into the car,
and whipping her elephant and ladybird, drove out of the yard as fast as
possible, without knowing whither she was going. Her coursers never
stopped till they came to the foot of a brazen tower, that had neither
doors nor windows, in which lived an old enchantress, who had locked
herself up there with seventeen thousand husbands. It had but one
single vent for air, which was a small chimney grated over, through
which it was scarce possible to put one's hand. Pissimissi, who was
very impatient, ordered her coursers to fly with her up to the top of the
chimney, which, as they were the most docile creatures in the world,
they immediately did; but unluckily the fore paw of the elephant
lighting on the top of the chimney, broke down the grate by its weight,
but at the same time stopped up the passage so entirely, that all the
enchantress's husbands were stifled for want of air. As it was a
collection she had made with great care and cost, it is easy to imagine
her vexation and rage. She raised a storm of thunder and lightning that
lasted eight hundred and four years; and having conjured up an army of
two thousand devils, she ordered them to flay the elephant alive, and
dress it for her supper with anchovy sauce. Nothing could have saved
the poor beast, if, struggling to get loose from the chimney, he had not
happily broken wind, which it seems is a great preservative against
devils. They all flew a thousand ways, and in their hurry carried away
half the brazen tower, by which means the elephant, the car, the
ladybird, and Pissimissi got loose; but in their fall tumbled through the
roof of an apothecary's shop, and broke all his bottles of physic. The
elephant, who was very dry with his fatigue, and who had not much
taste, immediately sucked up all the medicines with his proboscis,
which occasioned such a variety of effects in his bowels, that it was
well he had such a strong constitution, or he must have died of it. His

evacuations were so plentiful, that he not only drowned the tower of
Babel, near which the apothecary's shop stood, but the current ran
fourscore leagues till it came to the sea, and there poisoned so many
whales and leviathans, that a pestilence ensued, and lasted three years,
nine months and sixteen days. As the elephant was extremely weakened
by what had happened, it was impossible for him to draw the car for
eighteen months, which was a cruel delay to Pissimissi's impatience,
who during all that time could not travel above a hundred miles a day,
for as she carried the sick animal in her lap, the poor ladybird could not
make longer stages with no assistance. Besides, Pissimissi bought
every thing she saw wherever she came; and all was crouded into the
car and stuffed into the seat. She had purchased ninety-two dolls,
seventeen baby-houses, six cart-loads of sugar-plumbs, a thousand ells
of gingerbread, eight dancing dogs, a bear and a monkey, four
toy-shops with all their contents, and seven dozen of bibs and aprons of
the newest fashion. They were jogging on with all this cargo over
mount Caucasus, when an immense humming-bird, who had been
struck with the beauty of the ladybird's wings, that I had forgot to say
were of ruby spotted with black pearls, sousing down at once upon her
prey, swallowed ladybird, Pissimissi, the elephant, and all their
commodities. It happened that the humming-bird belonged to Solomon;
he let it out of its cage every morning after breakfast, and it constantly
came