horse, and shaking down cocoanuts! Oh yes, I have plenty of stories to
tell! But one need not tell everything. You know that very well, old
woman!' and then he kissed his mother so heartily that she nearly fell
backwards; he was indeed a wild boy.

The Southwind appeared now in a turban and a flowing bedouin's cloak.

'It is fearfully cold in here,' he said, throwing wood on the fire; 'it
is easy to see that the Northwind got here first!'

'It is hot enough here to roast a polar bear,' said the Northwind.

'You are a polar bear yourself!' said the Southwind.

'Do you want to go into the bag?' asked the old woman. 'Sit down on that
stone and tell us where you have been.'

'In Africa, mother!' he answered. 'I have been chasing the lion with the
Hottentots in Kaffirland! What grass there is on those plains! as green
as an olive. The gnu was dancing about, and the ostriches ran races with
me, but I am still the fastest. I went to the desert with its yellow
sand. It looks like the bottom of the sea. I met a caravan! They were
killing their last camel to get water to drink, but it wasn't much they
got. The sun was blazing above, and the sand burning below. There were
no limits to the outstretched desert. Then I burrowed into the fine
loose sand and whirled it up in great columns--that was a dance! You
should have seen how despondently the dromedaries stood, and the
merchant drew his caftan over his head. He threw himself down before me
as if I had been Allah, his god. Now they are buried, and there is a
pyramid of sand over them all; when I blow it away, sometime the sun