Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/174

and baths and a builder and a carpenter and a plank and a nail and a black slave with his flageolet and a captain and a caravan leader and towns and cities and an hundred thousand dinars and Cufa and Anbár^[1] and twenty chests full of stuffs and twenty storehouses for victuals and Gaza and Askalon and from Damietta to Al-Sawán^[2]; and the palace of Kisra Anushirwan and the kingdom of Solomon and from Wadi Nu'umán to the land of Khorasán and Balkh and Ispahán and from India to the Sudán. Therein also (may Allah prolong the life of our lord the Kazi!) are doublets and cloths and a thousand sharp razors to shave off the Kazi's beard, except he fear my resentment and adjudge the bag to be my bag.' Now when the Kazi heard what I and the Kurd avouched, he was confounded and said, 'I see ye twain be none other than two pestilent fellows, atheistical-villains who make sport of Kazis and magistrates and stand not in fear of reproach. Never did tongue tell nor ear hear aught more extraordinary than that which ye pretend. By Allah, from China to Shajarat Umm Ghaylán, nor from Fars to Sudan nor from Wadi Nu'uman to Khorasan, was ever heard the like of what ye avouch or credited the like of what ye affirm. Say, fellows, be this bag a bottomless sea or the Day of Resurrection that shall gather together the just and unjust?' Then the Kazi bade them open the bag; so I opened it and behold, there was in it bread and a lemon and cheese and olives. So I threw the bag down before the Kurd and ganged my gait." Now when the Caliph heard this tale from Ali the Persian, he laughed till he fell on his back and made him a handsome present.^[3] And men also relate a

1. On the Euphrates some 40 miles west of Baghdad The word is written "Anbár" and pronounced "Ambár" as usual with the "n" before "b"; the case of the Greek double Gamma.
2. Syene on the Nile.
3. The tale is in the richest Rabelaisian humour; and the requisitions of the "Saj'a" (rhymed prose) in places explain the grotesque combinations. It is difficult to divine why Lane omits it: probably he held a hearty laugh not respectable.