Curiosities of Olden TimesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Curiosities of Olden Times
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Curiosities and wonders
Nicolas Vorburg was an Oriental traveller. In the course of his wanderings
he reached Agra, the capital of the Great Cham. The European was
introduced to His Majesty at the dinner-hour, and found the monarch just
returned from the expedition, and as hungry as a hunter. A bowl of rice
was brought in. The Great Cham dipped his hands into it, and ladled so
much rice as they would hold into his capacious mouth, distended to the
utmost conceivable extent. But the Great Cham had overestimated the
capabilities of the distension of his jaws, and they became dislocated. At
the sight, the servants were distracted with fear. The nobles stroked
their chins in uncertainty how to act, the priests had recourse to their
devotions, but no one assisted the monarch out of his dilemma. He sat upon
his imperial throne purple in the face, his eyes distended with horror,
his mouth gaping, and full of rice. Suffocation was imminent. Nicolas
Vorburg, without even prostrating himself before the emperor, ran up the
steps of his throne, and hit him a violent crack with the palm of his
hand upon the cheek. The rice fell out of his mouth upon the imperial lap,
some, it is surmised, descended the imperial red-lane. Another slap
accomplished the relief of the monarch, and set the jaw once more in
working order. At the same moment the servants screamed at the outrage
committed upon the sacred majesty of the emperor, the nobles drew their
swords to avenge it, and the priests converted their prayers for the
recovery of their king into curses on the head of him who had
sacrilegiously raised his hand to violate his divinity. Poor Vorburg would
have been made into mincemeat, had not the emperor providentially
recovered his breath in time to administer a reproof to his over-zealous
subjects. He acknowledged the relief afforded him by the stranger by a
present of a thousand rupees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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