where I filled my bag with pebbles large and small, and presently
we saw a company of folk issue from the town, each bearing a bag
like mine, filled with pebbles. To these he committed me,
commending me to their care, and saying, "This man is a stranger,
so take him with you and teach him how to gather, that he may get
his daily bread, and you will earn your reward and recompense in
Heaven." "On our head and eyes be it!" answered they and bidding
me welcome, fared on with me till we came to a spacious Wady,
full of lofty trees with trunks so smooth that none might climb
them. Now sleeping under these trees were many apes, which when
they saw us rose and fled from us and swarmed up among the
branches; whereupon my companions began to pelt them with what
they had in their bags, and the apes fell to plucking of the
fruit of the trees and casting them at the folk. I looked at the
fruits they cast at us and found them to be Indian[FN#65] or
cocoa-nuts; so I chose out a great tree, full of apes, and going
up to it, began to pelt them with stones, and they in return
pelted me with nuts, which I collected, as did the rest; so that
even before I had made an end of my bagful of pebbles, I had
gotten great plenty of nuts; and as soon as my companions had in
like manner gotten as many nuts as they could carry, we returned
to the city, where we arrived at the fag-end of day. Then I went
in to the kindly man who had brought me in company with the nut-
gatherers and gave him all I had gotten, thanking him for his
kindness; but he would not accept them, saying, "Sell them and
make profit by the price; and presently he added (giving me the
key of a closet in his house) "Store thy nuts in this safe place
and go thou forth every morning and gather them as thou hast done
to-day, and choose out the worst for sale and supplying thyself;
but lay up the rest here, so haply thou mayst collect enough to