The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Rudolf Raspe

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that still lay quivering on the outside of the gate. It would have

      been an irreparable loss, had not our farrier contrived to bring both

      parts together while hot. He sewed them up with sprigs and young shoots

      of laurels that were at hand; the wound healed, and, what could not have

      happened but to so glorious a horse, the sprigs took root in his body,

      grew up, and formed a bower over me; so that afterwards I could go upon

      many other expeditions in the shade of my own and my horse’s laurels.

      CHAPTER VI

      _The Baron is made a prisoner of war, and sold for a slave – Keeps the

      Sultan’s bees, which are attacked by two bears – Loses one of his bees;

      a silver hatchet, which he throws at the bears, rebounds and flies up to

      the moon; brings it back by an ingenious invention; falls to the earth

      on his return, and helps himself out of a pit – Extricates himself from

      a carriage which meets his in a narrow road, in a manner never before

      attempted nor practised since – The wonderful effects of the frost upon

      his servant’s French horn._

      I was not always successful. I had the misfortune to be overpowered

      by numbers, to be made prisoner of war; and, what is worse, but always

      usual among the Turks, to be sold for a slave. [The Baron was afterwards

      in great favour with the Grand Seignior, as will appear hereafter.] In

      that state of humiliation my daily task was not very hard and laborious,

      but rather singular and irksome. It was to drive the Sultan’s bees every

      morning to their pasture-grounds, to attend them all the day long, and

      against night to drive them back to their hives. One evening I missed a

      bee, and soon observed that two bears had fallen upon her to tear her to

      pieces for the honey she carried. I had nothing like an offensive weapon

      in my hands but the silver hatchet, which is the badge of the Sultan’s

      gardeners and farmers. I threw it at the robbers, with an intention to

      frighten them away, and set the poor bee at liberty; but, by an unlucky

      turn of my arm, it flew upwards, and continued rising till it

      reached the moon. How should I recover it? how fetch it down again?

      I recollected that Turkey-beans grow very quick, and run up to an

      astonishing height. I planted one immediately; it grew, and actually

      fastened itself to one of the moon’s horns. I had no more to do now

      but to climb up by it into the moon, where I safely arrived, and had a

      troublesome piece of business before I could find my silver hatchet, in

      a place where everything has the brightness of silver; at last,

      however, I found it in a heap of chaff and chopped straw. I was now for

      returning: but, alas! the heat of the sun had dried up my bean; it was

      totally useless for my descent: so I fell to work, and twisted me a rope

      of that chopped straw, as long and as well as I could make it. This I

      fastened to one of the moon’s horns, and slid down to the end of it.

      Here I held myself fast with the left hand, and with the hatchet in my

      right, I cut the long, now useless end of the upper part, which, when

      tied to the lower end, brought me a good deal lower: this repeated

      splicing and tying of the rope did not improve its quality, or bring me

      down to the Sultan’s farm. I was four or five miles from the earth at

      least when it broke; I fell to the ground with such amazing violence,

      that I found myself stunned, and in a hole nine fathoms deep at

      least, made by the weight of my body falling from so great a height: I

      recovered, but knew not how to get out again; however, I dug slopes or

      steps with my finger-nails [the Baron’s nails were then of forty years’

      growth], and easily accomplished it.

      Peace was soon after concluded with the Turks, and gaining my liberty,

      I left St. Petersburg at the time of that singular revolution, when the

      emperor in his cradle, his mother, the Duke of Brunswick, her father,

      Field-Marshal Munich, and many others were sent to Siberia. The winter

      was then so uncommonly severe all over Europe, that ever since the sun

      seems to be frost-bitten. At my return to this place, I felt on the road

      greater inconveniences than those I had experienced on my setting out.

      I travelled post, and finding myself in a narrow lane, bid the

      postillion give a signal with his horn, that other travellers might

      not meet us in the narrow passage. He blew with all his might; but his

      endeavours were in vain, he could not make the horn sound, which was

      unaccountable, and rather unfortunate, for soon after we found ourselves

      in the presence of another coach coming the other way: there was no

      proceeding; however, I got out of my carriage, and being pretty strong,

      placed it, wheels and all, upon my head: I then jumped over a hedge

      about nine feet high (which, considering the weight of the coach, was

      rather difficult) into a field, and came out again by another jump into

      the road beyond the other carriage: I then went back for the horses, and

      placing one upon my head, and the other under my left arm, by the same

      means brought them to my coach, put to, and proceeded to an inn at the

      end of our stage. I should have told you that the horse under my arm was

      very spirited, and not above four years old; in making my second spring

      over the hedge, he expressed great dislike to that violent kind of

      motion by kicking and snorting; however, I confined his hind legs

      by putting them into my coat-pocket. After we arrived at the inn my

      postillion and I refreshed ourselves: he hung his horn on a peg near the

      kitchen fire; I sat on the other side.

      Suddenly we heard a _tereng! tereng! teng! teng!_ We looked round, and

      now found the reason why the postillion had not been able to sound his

      horn; his tunes were frozen up in the horn, and came out now by thawing,

      plain enough, and much to the credit of the driver; so that the honest

      fellow entertained us for some time with a variety of tunes,

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