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was troubled. ‘O my sister,’ quoth he, ‘what ails thee to change colour and be troubled?’ And she answered, ‘Know, O my brother, that this damsel is the daughter of one of the most puissant kings of the Jinn, and her father hath dominion over men and Jinn and wizards and diviners and tribesmen and guards and countries and islands and cities galore and hath wealth in plenty. Our father is one of his vassals and none can avail against him, for the multitude of his troops and the vastness of his empire and his much wealth. He hath assigned to his daughters a tract of country, a whole year’s journey in length and breadth, compassed about with a great river; and thereto none may win, nor man nor genie. He hath an army of women, smiters with swords and thrusters with spears, five-and-twenty thousand in number, each of whom, whenas she mounteth her charger and donneth her battle-harness, is a match for a thousand stout horsemen. Moreover, he hath seven daughters, who equal and even excel their sisters[1] in valour and prowess, and the eldest of them, the damsel whom thou sawest,[2] he hath made queen over the country aforesaid. She is the wisest of her sisters and excels all the folk of her dominions in valour and horsemanship and craft and skill in magic. The damsels thou sawest with her are her guards and favourites and the grandees of her empire, and the feathered skins wherewith they fly are the handiwork of enchanters of the Jinn.
Now they resort to this place on the first day of each
- ↑ i.e. the five-and-twenty thousand Amazons aforesaid who, by the way, are stated in the Boulac edition (which omits the word “army”) to have been also daughters of the king. I have adopted the less extravagant statement of the Calcutta and Breslau texts.
- ↑ This is a mistake on the part of Hassan’s adopted sister. The damsel he saw and fell in love with was (as appears by the sequel, see post, p. 224) not the eldest, but the youngest daughter of the Supreme King
