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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. encourage a man of such attainments and practical knowled Once the emperor, in Fathullah's presence 1, said to Bír Bar. "I really wonder how any one in his senses can believe that a man, whose body has a certain weight, could, in the space of a moment, leaye his bed, go up to heaven, there have 90,000 conversations with God, and yet on his return find his bed still warm?' So also was the splitting of the moon ridiculed. Why,' said His Majesty, lifting up one foot, it is really impossible for me to lift up the other foot! What silly stories men will believe. And that wretch (Bír Bar) and some other wretches-whose names be forgotten-said, "Yea. we believe! Yea, we trust!' This great foot-experiment was repeated over and over again. But Fathullah-His Majesty had been every moment looking at him, because he wanted him to say something; for he was a new-comer looked straight before himself, and did not utter a syllable. though he was all ear.
Lastly, a few passages from the Dabistán 2.
Salámullah also said that God's Representative (Akbar) had often wept and said, 'O that my body were larger than all bodies together, so that the people of the world could feed on it without hurting other living animals!'
A sign of the sagacity of this king is this, that he employed in his service people of all classes, Jews, Persians, Túránís, &c., because one class of people, if employed to the exclusion
1 As Fathullah was a good mechanic, Akbar thought that by referring to the weight of a man, and the following experiment with his foot, he would induce Fathullah to make a remark on the prophet's ascension (mi'raj).
2 The Dabistán, ascribed to Mohsan Fáni, who lived in the 17th century, during the reign of the Emperor Jehangír (1605-1628), Shah Jehan (1628-1659), and Aurengzeb (1659-1707). English translation by A. Troyer, Paris, 1843.
