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 own in a narrow road, in a new manner.…The wonderful effects of the frost on a 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. My daily task was to attend the Sultan's bees. 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 in my hand only 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 to 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 a species of Turkey-bean grows very quick, and runs up to an astonishing height. I planted one immediately; it grew, and actually fastened itself to one of the moon's horns. I had now only to climb up by it into the moon, where I safely arrived, but had a troublesome piece of business before I could find my hatchet; at last, however, I found it in a heap of chaff and chopped straw. I was no for returning: but alas! the heat of the sun had entirely dried up my bean; so I fell to work, and twisted me a rope of the chopped straw, as long and as well as I could. 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, not useless end of the upper part, which, when tied to the lower end, brought me a good deal farther down; but when I was four or five miles from the earth at last, it broke; I fell to the ground with such amazing violence, that I found myself stunned, and in a hole nine fathoms deep, made by the weight of my body falling from so great a height: to get out, I dug steps with my nails, and easily accomplished it.
Peace was soon after concluded with the Turks; and gaining my liberty, I left St. Petersburgh. The winter was then uncommonly severe all over Europe. I travelled post, and finding myself in a narrow lane, bade a 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 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, on my head; I then jumped over a hedge about nine feet hight (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 on 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. After we arrived at an 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 around, and now found the reason the postillion had not been able to sound his horn; his tunes were frozen up in it, 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 the successive variety of tunes, without putting his mouth to the horn.