Once a time when Brahmadatta was king in Benares in Kasi the Bodhisatta was born into a trader’s family. When he was grown up, he used to travel about trading with 500 carts. On one occasion he came to a sandy wilderness sixty leagues across, the send of which was so fine that, when grasped, it slipped through the fingers of the closed fist. As soon as the sun got up, it grew as hot as a bed of charcoal-embers and nobody could walk upon it. Accordingly, those traversing it used to take fire-wood, water, oil, rice and so forth on their carts, and only trevelled by night. At dawn they used to range their carts in a circle to form a laager, with an – awning spread overhead, and after an early meal used to sit in the shade all the day long. When the sun went down, they had their evening meal; and, so soon as the ground became cool, they used to yoke their carts and move forward. Travelling on this desert was like voyaging over the sea; a ‘desert-pilot,’ as he was called, had to convoy them over by knowledge of the stars. And this was the way in which our merchant was now traveling that wilderness.