A certain wise man related that in Hindustan there was a tree of such wonderful virtues that whosoever ate of its fruit lived forever. Hearing this, a king deputed one of his courtiers to go in quest of it. The courtier accordingly proceeded to Hindustan, and travelled all over that country, inquiring of every one he met where this tree was to be found. Some of these people professed their entire ignorance, others joked with him, and others gave him false information; and, finally, he had to return to his country with his mission unaccomplished.
He then, as a last resource, betook himself to the sage who had first spoken of the tree, and begged for further information about it, and the sage replied to him as follows:

The Shaikh laughed and said to him, "O friend,
This is the tree of knowledge, O knowing one;
Very high, very fine, very expansive,
The very water of life from the circumfluent ocean.


Four persons, a Persian, an Arab, a Turk, and a Greek, were travelling together, and they received a present of a dirhem. The Persian said he would buy "angur" with it, the Arab said he would buy "inab", while the Turk and the Greek were for buying "unum" and "astaphil", respectively.
Now all these words mean one and the same thing -"grapes" - but owing to their ignorance of each other's languages, they fancied they each wanted to buy something different, and accordingly a violent quarrel arose between them.

At last a wise man who knew all their languages came up and explained to them that they were all wishing for one and the same thing.