When, however, the proposition was made not a soul responded; though Euphronius reproached his disciples severely, and desired them to compare their want of spirit with his own thirst for knowledge, which, when he was a young man, had taken him as far as Alexandria to hear a celebrated rhetorician.  In the evening, however, two disciples came to him together, and professed their readiness to undertake the expedition, if promised a reward commensurate with its danger and difficulty.

“Ye would learn the secret of my celebrated dilemma,” said he, “which no sophist can elude?  ’Tis much; ’tis immoderate; ’tis enormous; nevertheless, bring the wisdom of India to Berytus, and the knowledge of the stratagem shall be yours.”

“No, Master,” they said, “it is not thy dilemma of which we are enamoured.  It is thy daughter.”

A vehement altercation ensued, but at length the old philosopher, who at the bottom of his heart was much readier to part with his daughter than his dilemma, was induced to promise her to whichever of the pupils should bring home the most satisfactory exposition of Indian metaphysics:  provided always that during their absence he should not have been compelled to bestow her hand as the price of a quibble even more subtle than his own:  but this he believed to be impossible.

Mnesitheus and Rufus accordingly travelled with the embassy to India, and arrived in safety at the metropolis of Palimbothra.  They had wisely devoted themselves meanwhile to learning the language, and were now able to converse with some fluency.

On reaching their destination they were placed under the superintendence of competent instructors, who were commissioned to initiate them into the canon of Buddhist scriptures, comprising, to mention only a few of the principal, the Lalitavistara, the Dhammapada, the Kuddhapatha, the Palinokkha, the Uragavagga, the Kulavagga, the Mahavagga, the Atthakavagga, and the Upasampadakammavaca.  These works, composed in dead languages, and written in strange and unknown characters, were further provided with commentaries more voluminous and inexplicable than the text.

“Heavens,” exclaimed Mnesitheus and Rufus, “can the life of a man suffice to study all this?”

“Assuredly not,” replied the Indians.  “The diligent student will resume his investigations in a subsequent stage of existence, and, if endowed with eminent faculties, may hope to attain the end he proposes to himself at the fifteenth transmigration.”

“The end we propose to ourselves,” said the Greeks, “is to marry our master’s daughter.  Will the fair Euphronia also have undergone fifteen transmigrations, and will her charms have continued unimpaired?”

“It is difficult to pronounce,” said they, “for should the maiden, through the exercise of virtue, have merited to be born as a white elephant, her transmigrations must in the order of nature be but few; whereas should she have unfortunately become and remained a rat, a frog, or other shortlived animal, they cannot but be exceedingly numerous.”