health. Let us make haste to land;"—for they were just in sight of the city of the King of the Peacocks.
His majesty had sent down to the beach a hundred coaches drawn by all sorts of rare animals. There were lions, bears, stags, wolves, horses, oxen, asses, eagles, peacocks, and the coach intended to convey the Princess Rosette was drawn by six blue monkeys, who could jump, and dance the tight-rope, and play all manner of amusing tricks. They had beautiful harness of crimson velvet plated with gold. There were also sixty young ladies whom the king had selected to entertain the Princess. They were dressed in all sorts of colours; gold and silver were the meanest ornaments about them.
The nurse had taken great pains to deck out her daughter. She had covered her with Rosette's diamonds, from head to foot, and dressed her in her friend's robes; but despite her finery she looked more ugly than an ape, with greasy black hair, squinting eyes, crooked legs, a great hump in the middle of her back—an ill-tempered slut, continually grumbling.
When all the servants of the King of the Peacocks saw her come out of the boat, they were so surprised—so surprised, that they could not speak. "What does this mean?" said she, "are you asleep?—Come, come, bring me something to eat; you are a nice set of rascals; I will have you all hanged!" At this threat, they said to each other, "What a vile creature!—she is as wicked as she is ugly!—Here's a fine wife for our king!—I am not surprised at it!—It was not worth while to send for her from the other end of the world!" All this while she played the mistress, giving slaps on the face, and blows with her fist, for next to nothing, to everybody about her.
As her train was very numerous, she proceeded slowly. She sat in her coach like a queen: but all the peacocks that had perched themselves in the trees to salute her as she passed, and had resolved to cry, "Long live the beautiful Queen Rosette," when they perceived her to be such a horrible fright, cried, "Fie! fie! how ugly she is!" She was excessively enraged and mortified, and said to her guards, "Kill me those rogues of peacocks who are insulting me." The peacocks flew away quickly, and made game of her.
The rogue of a boatman, who witnessed all this, said in a whisper to the nurse, "Gossip, all is not well with us.
