This story affords an additional example of the affinity between the
ancient Asiatic and European legends, so as to convince us that it is
nearly impossible that the one should not be in some way borrowed from
the other. There is, in a compilation called the Turkish Tales, a
story of an infidel sultan of Egypt, who took the liberty before a
learned Mahometan doctor, of ridiculing some of the miracles ascribed
to the prophet, as for example his transportation into the seventh
heaven, and having ninety thousand conferences with God, while in the
mean time a pitcher of water, which had been thrown down in the first
step of his ascent, was found with the water not all spilled at his
return.
The doctor, who had the gift of working miracles, told the sultan that,
with his consent, he would give him a practical proof of the
possibility of the circumstance related of Mahomet. The sultan agreed.
The doctor therefore directed that a huge tub of water should be
brought in, and, while the prince stood before it with his courtiers
around, the holy man bade him plunge his head into the water, and draw
it out again. The sultan immersed his head, and had no sooner done so,
than he found himself alone at the foot of a mountain on a desert
shore. The prince first began to rave against the doctor for this
piece of treachery and witchcraft. Perceiving however that all his
rage was vain, and submitting himself to the imperiousness of his
situation, he began to seek for some habitable tract. By and by he
discovered people cutting down wood in a forest, and, having no remedy,
he was glad to have recourse to the same employment. In process of
time he was brought to a town; and there by great good fortune, after
other adventures, he married a woman of beauty and wealth, and lived
long enough with her, for her to bear him seven sons and seven
daughters. He was afterwards reduced to want, so as to be obliged to
ply in the streets as a porter for his livelihood. One day, as he
walked alone on the sea-shore, ruminating on his hard fate, he was
seized with a fit of devotion, and threw off his clothes, that he
might wash himself, agreeably to the Mahometan custom, previously to
saying his prayers. He had no sooner however plunged into the sea, and
raised his head again above water, than he found himself standing by
the side of the tub that had been brought in, with all the great
persons of his court round him, and the holy man close at his side. He
found that the long series of imaginary adventures he had passed
through, had in reality occupied but one minute of time.