Monkey by Ch'eng-en Wu

Author:Ch'eng-en, Wu [Ch'eng-en, Wu]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780140441116
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2005-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVIII

SO the three of them travelled on towards the west, and came at last to a great plain. Summer had passed and autumn come. They heard ‘the cicada singing in the rotten willow’, saw ‘the Fire-Star rolling to the west’. At last they came to a huge and turbulent river, racing along with gigantic waves. ‘That’s a very broad river,’ cried Tripitaka from on horse­back. ‘There does not seem to be a ferry anywhere about. How are we to get across ?’

‘A boat wouldn’t be much use in waters as rough as that,’ said Pigsy.

Monkey leapt into the air, and shading his eyes with his hand ga2ed at the waters. ‘Master,’ he cried, ‘this is going to be no easy matter. For me, yes. I should only have to shake my hips, and I should be across at one bound. But for you it’s not going to be such easy work.’

‘I can’t even see the other side,’ said Tripitaka. ‘How far is it, do you suppose ?’

‘About eight hundred leagues,’ said Monkey.

‘How do you come to that reckoning ?’ asked Pigsy.

‘I’ll tell you frankly,’ said Monkey. ‘My sight is so good that I can see everything, lucky or unlucky, a thousand leagues away, and when I looked down on this river from above I could see well enough that it must be a good eight hundred leagues across.’ Tripitaka was very much depressed, and was just turning his horse when he saw a slab of stone on which was the inscription ‘River of Flowing Sand’. Under­neath in small letters was the verse:

In the Floating Sands, eight hundred wide,

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