A bareheaded and barefooted pedestrian who had arrived from Kufah with the Hejaz-caravan of pilgrims joined us, strutted about and recited:

 `I am neither riding a camel nor under a load like a camel. 
 I am neither a lord of subjects nor the slave of a potentate. 
 Grief for the present, or distress for the past, does not trouble me. 
 I draw my breath in comfort and thus spend my life.? 

A camel-rider shouted to him: `O dervish, where art thou going? Return, for thou wilt expire from hardships.? He paid no attention but entered the desert and marched. When we reached the station at the palm-grove of Mahmud, the rich man was on the point of death and the dervish, approaching his pillow, said: `We have not expired from hardship but thou hast died on a dromedary.?

 A man wept all night near the head of a patient. 
 When the day dawned he died and the patient revived. 
 Many a fleet charger had fallen dead 
 While a lame ass reached the station alive. 
 Often healthy persons were in the soil 
 Buried and the wounded did not die.