"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

* The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number."- Sale's Koran.

"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read
something of the kind before, in a book."
"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between
the legs of the cow, and, after some hours, found ourselves in a
wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal, was
his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This
elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now
began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had
treated him; for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation
of the most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their
brain,* which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful
writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of
imagination!'"

* "The Entozoa, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been observed
in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men."- See Wyatt's
Physiology, p. 143.

"Nonsense!" said the king.
"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were
iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black
stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he was
so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than the
grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the
flight of most birds.'"*

* On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a speed
of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90 tons was
whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51 minutes.

"Twattle!" said the king.
"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly
related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood
or black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred
chickens in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence
for several weeks within the stomach of their mother.'"*

* The Eccalobeion

"Fa! lal!" said the king.
"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of
brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity
that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the
exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid.* Another of these