Oriental Tales

Schacabac being reduced to great poverty, and having eat nothing for two days together, made a visit to a noble Barmecide, in Persia, who was very hospitable, but withal a great humourist.—The Barmecide was sitting at his table, that seemed ready covered for an entertainment. Upon hearing Schacabac’s complaint, he desired him to sit down and fall on. He then gave him an empty plate, and asked him how he liked his rice-soup. Schacabac, who was a man of wit, and resolved to comply with the Barmecide in all his humours, told him it was admirable, and at the same time, in imitation of the other, lifted up the empty spoon to his mouth with great pleasure. The Barmecide then asked him if he ever saw whiter bread? Schacabac, who saw neither bread nor meat, If I did not like it, you may be sure, says he, I should not eat so heartily of it. You oblige me mightily, replied the Barmecide, pray let me help you to this leg of goose. Schacabac reached out his plate, and received nothing on it with great chearfulness. As he was eating very heartily of this imaginary goose, and crying up the sauce to the skies, the Barmecide desired him to keep a corner of his stomach for a roasted lamb, fed with pistachio-nuts, and after having called for it, as though it had really been served up, Here is a dish, says he, that you will see at nobody’s table but my own. Schacabac was wonderfully delighted with the taste of it, which is like nothing, says he, I ever eat before. Several other nice dishes were served up in idea, which both of them commended, and feasted on after the same manner. This was followed by an invisible desert, no part of which delighted Schacabac so much as a certain lozenge, which the Barmecide told him was a sweet-meat of his own invention. Schacabac at length, being courteously reproached by the Barmecide, that he had no stomach, and that he eat nothing, and at the same time being tired with moving his jaws up and down to no purpose, desired to be excused, for that really he was so full that he could not eat a bit more. Come, then, says the Barmecide, the cloth shall be removed, and you shall taste of my wines, which I may say, without vanity, are the best in Persia. He then filled both their glasses out of an empty decanter. Schacabac would have excused himself from drinking so much at once, because he said he was a little quarrelsome in his liquor; however, being prest to it, he pretended to take it off, having before-hand praised the colour, and afterwards the flavour. Being plied with two or three other imaginary bumpers of different wines equally delicious, and a little vexed with this fantastic treat, he pretended to grow fluttered, and gave the Barmecide a good box on the ear; but immediately recovering himself, Sir, says he, I beg ten thousand pardons, but I told you before, that it was my misfortune to be quarrelsome in my drink. The Barmecide could not but smile at the humour of his guest, and instead of being angry with him, I find, says he, thou art a complaisant fellow, and deservest to be entertained in my house. Since thou canst accommodate thyself to my humour, we will now eat together in good earnest. Upon which calling for his supper, the rice-soup, the goose, the pistachio-lamb, the several other nice dishes, with the desert, the lozenges, and all the variety of Persian wines, were served up successively one after another; and Schacabac was feasted, in reality, with those very things which he had before been entertained within imagination.

When the plains of India were burnt up by a long continuance of drought, Hamet and Raschid, two neighbouring shepherds, faint with thirst, stood at the common boundary of their grounds, with their flocks and herds panting round them, and in extremity of distress prayed for water. On a sudden the air was becalmed, the birds ceased to chirp, and the flocks to bleat. They turned their eyes every way, and saw a being of mighty stature advancing through the valley, whom they knew upon his nearer approach to be the Genius of Distribution. In one hand he held the sheaves of plenty, and in the other, the sabre of destruction. The shepherds stood trembling, and would have retired before him; but he called to them with a voice gentle as the breeze that plays in the evening among the spices of Sabæa: “Fly not from your benefactor, children of the dust! I am come to offer you gifts, which only your own folly can make vain. You here pray for water, and water I will bestow; let me know with how much you will be satisfied: speak not rashly; consider, that of whatever can be enjoyed by the body, excess is no less dangerous than scarcity. When you remember the pain of thirst, do not forget the danger of suffocation. Now, Hamet, tell me your request.”

“O Being, kind and beneficent,” says Hamet, “let thine eye pardon my confusion. I entreat a little brook, which in summer shall never be dry, and in winter never overflow.” “It is granted,” replies the Genius; and immediately he opened the ground with his sabre, and a fountain bubbling up under their feet, scattered its rills over the meadows; the flowers renewed their fragrance, the trees spread a greener foilage, and the flocks and herds quenched their thirst.

Then turning to Raschid, the Genius invited him likewise to offer his petition. “I request,” says Raschid, “that thou wilt turn the Ganges through my grounds, with all his waters, and all their inhabitants.” Hamet was struck with the greatness of his neighbour’s sentiments, and secretly repined in his heart, that he had not made the same petition before him; when the Genius spoke, “Rash man, be not insatiable! remember, to thee that is nothing which thou canst not use; and how are thy wants greater than the wants of Hamet?” Raschid repeated his desire, and pleased himself with the mean appearance that Hamet would make in the presence of the proprietor of the Ganges. The Genius then retired towards the river, and the two shepherds stood waiting the event. As Raschid was looking with contempt upon his neighbour, on a sudden was heard the roar of torrents, and they found by the mighty stream that the mounds of the Ganges were broken. The flood rolled forward into the lands of Raschid, his plantations were torn up, his flocks overwhelmed, he was swept away before it, and a crocodile devoured him.

A certain Cham of Tartary going a progress with his nobles, was met by a Dervise, who cried with a loud voice, whoever will give me a hundred pieces of gold, I will give him a piece of advice. The Cham ordered him the sum: upon which the Dervise said, begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end.

The courtiers upon hearing this plain sentence, smiled, and said with a sneer, “The dervise is well paid for his maxim.” But the king was so well satisfied with the answer, that he ordered it to be written in golden letters in several places of his palace, and engraved on all his plate. Not long after, the king’s surgeon was bribed to kill him with a poisoned lancet at the time he let him blood. One day, when the king’s arm was bound, and the fatal lancet in the surgeon’s hand, he read on the bason, begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end. He immediately started, and let the lancet fall out of his hand. The king observed his confusion, and enquired the reason: the surgeon fell prostrate, confessed the whole affair, and was pardoned, and the conspirators died. The Cham, turning to his courtiers who heard the advice with contempt, told them, “that counsel could not be too much valued, which had saved a king’s life.”

Omar, the hermit of the mountain Aubukabis, which rises on the east of Mecca, and overlooks the city, found one evening a man sitting pensive and alone, within a few paces of his cell. Omar regarded him with attention, and perceived that his looks were wild and haggard, and that his body was feeble and emaciated: the man also seemed to gaze stedfastly on Omar; but such was the abstraction of his mind, that his eye did not immediately take cognizance of its object. In the moment of recollection he started as from a dream, he covered his face in confusion, and bowed himself to the ground.—“Son of affliction,” said Omar, “who art thou, and what is thy distress?” “My name,” replied the stranger, “is Hassan, and I am a native of this city: the Angel of adversity has laid his hand upon me; and the wretch whom thine eye compassionates, thou canst not deliver.” “To deliver thee,” said Omar, “belongs to Him only, from whom we should receive with humility both good and evil; yet hide not thy life from me; for the burthen which I cannot remove, I may at least enable thee to sustain.” Hassan fixed his eyes upon the ground, and remained some time silent; then fetching a deep sigh, he looked up at the hermit, and thus complied with his request.

It is now six years since our mighty lord the Calif Almalic, whose memory be blessed, first came privately to worship in the temple of the holy city. The blessings which he petitioned of the Prophet, as the Prophet’s vicegerent, he was diligent to dispense; in the intervals of his devotion, therefore, he went about the city, relieving distress, and restraining oppression: the widow smiled under his protection, and the weakness of age and infancy was sustained by his bounty. I, who dreaded no evil but sickness, and expected no good beyond the reward of my labour, was singing at my work, when Almalic entered my dwelling. He looked round with a smile of complacency; perceiving that though it was mean, it was neat, and that though I was poor, I appeared to be content. As his habit was that of a pilgrim, I hastened to receive him with such hospitality as was in my power; and my cheerfulness was rather increased than restrained by his presence. After he had accepted some coffee, he asked me many questions; and though by my answers I always endeavoured to excite him to mirth, yet I perceived that he grew thoughtful, and eyed me with a placid but fixed attention. I suspected that he had some knowledge of me, and therefore inquired his country and his name. “Hassan,” said he, “I have raised thy curiosity, and it shall be satisfied: he who now talks with thee is Almalic, the sovereign of the faithful, whose seat is the throne of Medina, and whose commission is from above.” These words struck me dumb with astonishment, though I had some doubt of their truth: but Almalic, throwing back his garment, discovered the peculiarity of his vest, and put the royal signet upon his finger. I then started up, and was about to prostrate myself before him, but he prevented me: “Hassan,” said he, “forbear; thou art greater than I, and from thee I have at once derived humility and wisdom.” I answered, “Mock not thy servant, who is but as a worm before thee; life and death are in thy hand, and happiness and misery are the daughters of thy will.” “Hassan,” he replied, “I can no otherwise give life or happiness than by not taking them away: thou art thyself beyond the reach of my bounty, and possessed of felicity which I can neither communicate nor obtain.—My influence over others fills my bosom with perpetual solicitude and anxiety; and yet my influence over others extends only to their vices, whether I would reward or punish. By the bow-string, I can repress violence and fraud; and by the delegation of my power, I can transfer the insatiable wishes of avarice and ambition from one object to another; but with respect to virtue, I am impotent: if I could reward it, I would reward it in thee. Thou art content, and hast therefore neither avarice nor ambition: to exalt thee, would destroy the simplicity of thy life, and diminish that happiness which I have no power either to increase or continue.” He then rose up, and, commanding me not to disclose his secret, departed.

As soon as I recovered from the confusion and astonishment in which the Calif left me, I began to regret that my behaviour had intercepted his bounty; and accused of folly, that cheerfulness which was the concomitant of poverty and labour. I now repined at the obscurity of my station, which my former insensibility had perpetuated: I neglected my labour, because I despised the reward; I spent the day in idleness, forming romantic projects to recover the advantages which I had lost; and at night, instead of losing myself in that sweet and refreshing sleep, from which I used to rise with new health, cheerfulness, and vigour, I dreamt of splendid habits and a numerous retinue, of gardens, palaces, eunuchs, and women, and waked only to regret the illusions that had vanished. My health was at length impaired by the inquietude of my mind; I sold all my moveables for subsistence: and reserved only a mattrass, upon which I sometimes lay from one night to another.

In the first moon of the following year, the Calif came again to Mecca, with the same secrecy, and for the same purposes. He was willing once more to see the man, whom he considered as deriving felicity from himself. But he found me, not singing at my work, ruddy with health, and vivid with cheerfulness; but pale and dejected, sitting on the ground, and chewing opium, which contributed to substitute the phantoms of imagination for the realities of greatness. He entered with a kind of joyful impatience in his countenance, which, the moment he beheld me, was changed to a mixture of wonder and pity. I had often wished for another opportunity to address the Calif; yet I was confounded at his presence, and throwing myself at his feet, I laid my hand upon my head, and was speechless. “Hassan,” said he, “what canst thou have lost, whose wealth was the labour of thy own hand; and what can have made thee sad, the spring of whose joy was in thy own bosom?—What evil has befallen thee? Speak, and if I can remove it, thou art happy.” I was now encouraged to look up, and I replied, “Let my Lord forgive the presumption of his servant, who rather than utter a falsehood, would be dumb for ever. I am become wretched by the loss of that which I never possessed: thou hast raised wishes which indeed I am not worthy thou shouldst satisfy: but why should it be thought, that he who was happy in obscurity and indigence, would not have been rendered more happy by eminence and wealth?”

When I had finished this speech, Almalic stood some moments in suspense, and I continued prostrate before him. “Hassan,” said he, “I perceive, not with indignation but regret, that I mistook thy character; I now discover avarice and ambition in thy heart, which lay torpid only because their objects were too remote to rouse them. I cannot, therefore, invest thee with authority, because I would not subject my people to oppression; and because I would not be compelled to punish thee for crimes which I first enabled thee to commit.

“But as I have taken from thee that which I cannot restore, I will at least gratify the wishes that I excited, lest thy heart accuse me of injustice, and thou continue still a stranger to thyself. Arise, therefore, and follow me.” I sprung from the ground as it were with the wing of an eagle; I kissed the hem of his garment in an extasy of gratitude and joy; and when I went from my house, my heart leaped as if it had escaped from the den of a lion. I followed Almalic to the caravansary in which he lodged; and after he had fulfilled his vows, he took me with him to Medina. He gave me an apartment in the seraglio; I was attended by his own servants; my provisions were sent from his own table; and I received every week a sum from his treasury, which exceeded the most romantic of my expectations. But I soon discovered, that no dainty was so tasteful, as the food to which labour procured an appetite; no slumbers so sweet as those which weariness invited; and no time so well enjoyed, as that in which diligence is expecting its reward. I remembered these enjoyments with regret; and while I was sighing in the midst of superfluities, which though they encumbered life, yet I could not give up, they were suddenly taken away.

Almalic, in the midst of the glory of his kingdom, and in the full vigour of his life, expired suddenly in the bath; such, thou knowest, was the destiny which the Almighty had written upon his head.

His son Aububeker, who succeeded to the throne, was incensed against me, by some who regarded me at once with contempt and envy: he suddenly withdrew my pension, and commanded that I should be expelled the palace; a command which my enemies executed with so much rigour, that within twelve hours I found myself in the streets of Medina, indigent and friendless, exposed to hunger and derision, with all the habits of luxury, and all the sensibility of pride. O! let not thy heart despise me, thou whom experience hast not taught, that it is misery to lose that which it is not happiness to possess. O! that for me, this lesson had not been written on the tablets of Providence! I have travelled from Medina to Mecca: but I cannot fly from myself. How different are the states in which I have been placed! The remembrance of both is bitter; for the pleasures of neither can return. Hassan, having thus ended his story, smote his hands together, and looking upwards, burst into tears.

Omar, having waited till this agony was past, went to him, and taking him by the hand, “My son,” said he, “more is yet in thy power than Almalic could give, or Aububeker take away. The lesson of thy life the Prophet has in mercy appointed me to explain.

“Thou wast once content with poverty and labour, only because they were become habitual, and ease and affluence were placed beyond thy hope; for when ease and affluence approached thee, thou wast content with poverty and labour no more. That which then became the object, was also the bound of thy hope; and he, whose utmost hope is disappointed, must inevitably be wretched. If thy supreme desire had been the delights of Paradise, and thou hadst believed that by the tenor of thy life these delights had been secured, as more could not have been given thee, thou wouldst not have regretted that less was not offered. The content which was once enjoyed was but the lethargy of the soul; and the distress which is now suffered, will but quicken it to action. Depart, therefore, and be thankful for all things: put thy trust in Him, who alone can gratify the wish of reason, and satisfy the soul with good: fix thy hope upon that portion, in comparison of which the world is as the drop of the bucket, and the dust of the balance. Return, my son, to thy labour; thy food shall be again tasteful, and thy rest shall be sweet: to thy content also will be added stability, when it depends not upon that which is possessed upon earth, but upon that which is expected in Heaven.”

Hassan, upon whose mind the Angel of instruction impressed the counsel of Omar, hastened to prostrate himself in the temple of the Prophet. Peace dawned upon his mind like the radiance of the morning: he returned to his labour with cheerfulness; his devotion became fervent and habitual: and the latter days of Hassan were happier than the first.

A Dervise, travelling through Tartary, went into the king’s palace by mistake, as thinking it to be a public inn, or caravansary. Having looked about him for some time, he entered into a long gallery, where he laid down his wallet, and spread his carpet, in order to repose himself upon it, after the manner of the eastern nations.

He had not been long in this posture before he was discovered by some of the guards, who asked him what was his business in that place? The dervise told them that he intended to take up his night’s lodging in that caravansary. The guards told him, in a very angry manner, that the house he was in was not a caravansary, but the king’s palace. It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate; and, smiling at the mistake of the dervise, asked him how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary.

Sir, says the dervise, give me leave to ask your majesty a question or two. Who were the persons that lodged in this house when it was first built? The king replied, his ancestors. And who, says the dervise, was the last person that lodged here? The king replied, his father. And who is it, says the dervise, that lodges here at present? The king told him that it was himself. And who, says the dervise, will be here after you? The king answered, the young prince his son. “Ah, Sir,” said the dervise, “a house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a palace, but a caravansary.”

Omar, the son of Hassan, had passed seventy-five years in honour and prosperity. The favour of three successive califs had filled his house with gold and silver; and whenever he appeared, the benedictions of the people proclaimed his passage.

Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odours. The vigour of Omar began to fail, the curls of beauty fell from his head, strength departed from his hands, and agility from his feet. He gave back to the calif the keys of trust, and the seals of secrecy; and sought no other pleasure for the remains of life than the converse of the wise, and the gratitude of the good.

The powers of his mind were yet unimpaired. His chamber was filled by visitants, eager to catch the dictates of experience, and officious to pay the tribute of admiration. Caled, the son of the viceroy of Egypt, entered every day early, and retired late. He was beautiful and eloquent; Omar admired his wit and loved his docility. Tell me, said Caled, thou to whose voice nations have listened, and whose wisdom is known to the extremities of Asia, tell me how I may resemble Omar the prudent. The arts by which you have gained power and preserved it, are to you no longer necessary or useful; impart to me the secret of your conduct, and teach me the plan upon which your wisdom has built your fortune.

Young man, said Omar, it is of little use to form plans of life. When I took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solicitude, I said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches over my head: Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty remaining: ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore shall be honoured; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed will store my mind with images which I shall be busy through the rest of my life in combining and comparing. I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself. I will, however, not deviate too far from the beaten track of life, but will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide; with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdat, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and fancy can invent. I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my last days in obscurity and contemplation, and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend upon the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices of courts: I will never pant for public honours, nor disturb my quiet with affairs of state. Such was my scheme of life, which I impressed indelibly upon my memory.

The first part of my ensuing time was to be spent in search of knowledge; and I know not how I was diverted from my design. I had no visible impediments without, nor any ungovernable passions within. I regarded knowledge as the highest honour and the most engaging pleasure; yet day stole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that seven years of the first ten had vanished, and left nothing behind them. I now postponed my purpose of travelling; for why should I go abroad while so much remained to be learned at home? I immured myself for four years, and studied the laws of the empire. The fame of my skill reached the judges; I was found able to speak upon doubtful questions, and was commanded to stand at the footstool of the calif. I was heard with attention, I was consulted with confidence, and the love of praise fastened on my heart.

I still wished to see distant countries, listened with rapture to the relations of travellers, and resolved some time to ask my dismission, that I might feast my soul with novelty; but my presence was always necessary, and the stream of business hurried me along. Sometimes I was afraid lest I should be charged with ingratitude; but I still proposed to travel, and therefore would not confine myself by marriage.

In my fiftieth year I began to suspect that the time of travelling was past, and thought it best to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power, and indulge myself in domestic pleasures. But at fifty no man easily finds a woman beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide. I inquired and rejected, consulted and deliberated, till the sixty-second year made me ashamed of gazing upon girls. I had now nothing left but retirement, and for retirement I never found a time, till disease forced me from public employment.

Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable resolutions of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the walls of Bagdat.

In the midst of that vast ocean, commonly called the South-Sea, lie the islands of Solomon. In the centre of these lies one not only distant from the rest, which are immensely scattered round it, but also larger beyond proportion. An ancestor of the prince, who now reigns absolute in this central island, has, through a long descent of ages, entailed the name of Solomon’s Islands on the whole, by the effect of that wisdom wherewith he polished the manners of his people.

A descendant of one of the great men of this happy island, becoming a gentleman to so improved a degree as to despise the good qualities which had originally ennobled his family, thought of nothing but how to support and distinguish his dignity by the pride of an ignorant mind, and a disposition abandoned to pleasure. He had a house on the sea-side, where he spent great part of his time in hunting and fishing; but found himself at a loss in pursuit of those important diversions, by means of a long slip of marsh land, overgrown with high reeds, that lay between his house and the sea. Resolving, at length, that it became not a man of his quality to submit to a restraint in his pleasures, for the ease and convenience of an obstinate mechanic; and having often endeavoured, in vain, to buy out the owner, who was an honest poor basket-maker, and whose livelihood depended on working up the flags of those reeds, in a manner peculiar to himself, the gentleman took advantage of a very high wind, and commanded his servants to burn down the barrier.

The basket-maker, who saw himself undone, complained of the oppression in terms more suited to his sense of the injury, than the respect due to the rank of the offender; and the reward this imprudence procured him, was the additional injustice of blows and reproaches, and all kinds of insult and indignity.

There was but one way to a remedy, and he took it: for going to the capital, with the marks of his hard usage upon him, he threw himself at the feet of the king, and procured a citation for his oppressor’s appearance; who, confessing the charge, proceeded to justify his behaviour by the poor man’s unmindfulness of the submission due from the vulgar to gentlemen of rank and distinction.

“But pray,” replied the king, “what distinction of rank had the grand-father of your father, when, being a cleaver of wood in the palace of my ancestors, he was raised from among those vulgar you speak of with such contempt, in reward for an instance he gave of his courage and loyalty in defence of his master? Yet his distinction was nobler than yours: it was the distinction of soul, not of birth; the superiority of worth, not of fortune! I am sorry I have a gentleman in my kingdom who is base enough to be ignorant that ease and distinction of fortune were bestowed on him but to this end, that, being at rest from all cares of providing for himself, he might apply his heart, head, and hand, for the public advantage of others.”

Here the king, discontinuing his speech, fixed an eye of indignation on a sullen resentment of mien which he observed in the haughty offender, who muttered out his dislike of the encouragement this way of thinking must give to the commonality, who, he said, were to be considered as persons of no consequence, in comparison of men who were born to be honoured. “Where reflection is wanting,” replied the king, with a smile of disdain, “men must find their defects in the pain of their sufferings. Yanhuma,” added he, turning to a captain of his gallies, “strip the injured and the injurer; and, conveying them to one of the most barbarous and remote of the islands, set them ashore in the night, and leave them both to their fortune.”

The place in which they were landed was a marsh; under cover of those flags the gentleman was in hopes of concealing himself, and giving the slip to his companion, whom he thought it a disgrace to be found with: but the lights in the galley having giving an alarm to the savages, a considerable body of them came down, and discovered in the morning the two strangers in their hiding-place. Setting up a dismal yell, they surrounded them; and advancing nearer and nearer with a kind of clubs, seemed determined to dispatch them, without sense of hospitality or mercy.

Here the gentleman began to discover that the superiority of his blood was imaginary; for between the consciousness of shame and cold, under the nakedness he had never been used to; a fear of the event from the fierceness of the savages approach; and the want of an idea whereby to soften or divert their asperity, he fell behind the poor sharer of his calamity, and with an unsinewed, apprehensive, unmanly sneakingness of mien, gave up the post of honour, and made a leader of the very man whom he had thought it a disgrace to consider as a companion.

The basket-maker on the contrary, to whom the poverty of his condition had made nakedness habitual, to whom a life of pain and mortification represented death as not dreadful, and whose remembrance of his skill in arts, of which these savages were ignorant, gave him hopes of becoming safe, from demonstrating that he could be useful, moved with bolder and more open freedom; and having plucked a handful of the flags, sat down without emotion, and making signs that he would shew them something worthy of their attention, fell to work with smiles and noddings; while the savages drew near, and gazed with expectation of the consequence.

It was not long before he had wreathed a kind of coronet of pretty workmanship; and rising with respect and fearfulness, approached the savage who appeared the chief, and placed it gently on his head; whose figure, under this new ornament, so charmed and struck his followers, that they all threw down their clubs, and formed a dance of welcome and congratulation round the author of so prized a favour.

There was not one but shewed the marks of his impatience to be as fine as the captain: so the poor basket-maker had his hands full of employment: and the savages, observing one quite idle, while the other was so busy in their service, took up arms in behalf of natural justice, and began to lay on arguments in favour of their purpose.

The basket-maker’s pity now effaced the remembrance of his sufferings; so he arose and rescued his oppressor, by making signs that he was ignorant of the art; but might, if they thought fit, be usefully employed in waiting on the work, and fetching flags to his supply, as fast as he should want them.

This proposition luckily fell in with a desire the savages expressed to keep themselves at leisure, that they might crowd round, and mark the progress of a work they took such pleasure in. They left the gentleman therefore to his duty in the basket-maker’s service; and considered him, from that time forward, as one who was, and ought to be treated as inferior to their benefactor.

Men, women, and children, from all corners of the island, came in droves for coronets; and, setting the gentleman to work to gather boughs and poles, made a fine hut to lodge the basket-maker; and brought down daily from the country such provisions as they lived upon themselves, taking care to offer the imagined servant nothing till his master had done eating.

Three months reflection, in this mortified condition, gave a new and just turn to our gentleman’s improved ideas; insomuch that, lying weeping and awake one night, he thus confessed his sentiments in favour of the basket-maker. “I have been to blame, and wanted judgment to distinguish between accident and excellence. When I should have measured nature, I but looked to vanity. The preference which fortune gives, is empty and imaginary; and I perceive, too late, that only things of use are naturally honourable. I am ashamed, when I compare my malice, to remember your humanity; but if the gods should please to call me to a repossession of my rank and happiness, I would divide all with you, in atonement for my justly punished arrogance.”

He promised, and performed his promise: for the king, soon after, sent the captain who had landed them with presents to the savages, and ordered him to bring both back again. And it continues to this day a custom in that island, to degrade all gentlemen who cannot give a better reason for their pride, than they were born to do nothing: and the word for this due punishment is, send him to the basket-maker.

Almet, the dervise, who watched the sacred lamp in the sepulchre of the Prophet, as he one day rose up from the devotions of the morning, which he had performed at the gate of the temple, with his body turned towards the east, and his forehead on the earth, saw before him a man in splendid apparel, attended by a long retinue, who gazed stedfastly at him, with a look of mournful complacence, and seemed desirous to speak, but unwilling to offend.

The Dervise, after a short silence, advanced, and saluting him with the calm dignity which independence confers upon humility, requested that he would reveal his purpose.

“Almet,” said the stranger, “thou seest before thee a man whom the hand of prosperity has overwhelmed with wretchedness. Whatever I once desired as the means of happiness, I now possess; but I am not yet happy, and therefore I despair. I regret the lapse of time, because it glides away without enjoyment; and as I expect nothing in the future but the vanities of the past, I do not wish that the future should arrive. Yet I tremble lest it should be cut off; and my heart sinks when I anticipate the moment in which eternity shall close over the vacuity of my life, like the sea upon the path of a ship, and leave no traces of my existence more durable than the furrow which remains after the waves have united. If in the treasures of thy wisdom there is any precept to obtain felicity, vouchsafe it to me: for this purpose am I come; a purpose which yet I feared to reveal, lest, like all the former, it should be disappointed.”

Almet listened, with looks of astonishment and pity, to this complaint of a being, in whom reason was known to be a pledge of immortality; but the serenity of his countenance soon returned; and stretching out his hand towards heaven, “Stranger,” said he, “the knowledge which I have received from the Prophet, I will communicate to thee.

“As I was sitting one evening at the porch of the temple, pensive and alone, mine eye wandered among the multitude that was scattered before me; and while I remarked the weariness and solicitude which was visible in every countenance, I was suddenly struck with a sense of their condition. ‘Wretched mortals,’ said I, ‘to what purpose are you busy? Do the linens of Egypt, and the silks of Persia, bestow felicity on those who wear them, equal to the wretchedness of yonder slaves, whom I see leading the camels that bring them? Is the fineness of the texture, or the splendour of the tints, regarded with delight by those to whom custom has rendered them familiar? or can the power of habit render others insensible of pain, who live only to traverse the desart; a scene of dreadful uniformity, where a barren level is bounded only by the horizon; where no change of prospect, or variety of images, relieves the traveller from a sense of toil and danger, of whirlwinds which in a moment may bury him in the sand, and of thirst, which the wealthy have given half their possessions to allay? Do those on whom hereditary diamonds sparkle with unregarded lustre, gain from the possession what is lost by the wretch who seeks them in the mine; who lives excluded from the common bounties of nature; to whom even the vicissitude of day and night is not known; who sighs in perpetual darkness, and whose life is one alternative of insensibility and labour? If those are not happy who possess, in proportion as those are wretched who bestow, how vain a dream is the life of man! and if there is, indeed, such difference in the value of existence, how shall we acquit of partiality the hand by which this difference has been made?”

While my thoughts thus multiplied, and my heart burned within me, I became sensible of a sudden influence from above. The streets and the crowds of Mecca disappeared; I found myself sitting on the declivity of a mountain, and perceived at my right hand an angel, whom I knew to be Azoran, the minister of reproof. When I saw him I was afraid. I cast mine eye upon the ground, and was about to deprecate his anger, when he commanded me to be silent. “Almet,” said he, “thou has devoted thy life to meditation, that thy counsel might deliver ignorance from the mazes of error, and deter presumption from the precipice of guilt; but the book of nature thou hast read without understanding: it is again open before thee: look up, consider it, and be wise.”

I looked up, and beheld an inclosure, beautiful as the gardens of Paradise, but of a small extent. Through the middle there was a green walk; at the end a wild desart; and beyond, impenetrable darkness. The walk was shaded with trees of every kind, that were covered at once with blossoms and fruit; innumerable birds were singing in the branches; the grass was intermingled with flowers, which impregnated the breeze with fragrance, and painted the path with beauty; on one side flowed a gentle, transparent stream, which was just heard to murmur over the golden sands that sparkled at the bottom; and on the other were walks and bowers, fountains, grottoes, and cascades, which diversified the scene with endless variety, but did not conceal the bounds.

While I was gazing in a transport of delight and wonder on this enchanting spot, I perceived a man stealing along the walk with a thoughtful and deliberate pace; his eyes were fixed upon the earth, and his arms crossed on his bosom; he sometimes started, as if a sudden pang had seized him; his countenance expressed solicitude and terror; he looked round with a sigh, and having gazed a moment on the desart that lay before him, he seemed as if he wished to stop, but was impelled forwards by some invisible power; his features however soon settled again in a calm melancholy; his eye was again fixed on the ground; and he went on as before, with apparent reluctance, but without emotion. I was struck with his appearance; and turning hastily to the angel, was about to enquire what could produce such infelicity in a being surrounded with every object that could gratify every sense; but he prevented my request: “The book of nature,” said he, “is before thee; look up, consider it, and be wise.” I looked, and beheld a valley between two mountains that were craggy and barren; on the path there was no verdure, and the mountains afforded no shade; the sun burned in the zenith, and every spring was dried up; but the valley terminated in a country that was pleasant and fertile, shaded with woods, and adorned with buildings. At a second view, I discovered a man in this valley, meagre indeed and naked, but his countenance was cheerful, and his deportment active; he kept his eye fixed upon the country before him, and looked as if he would have run, but that he was restrained, as the other had been impelled, by some secret influence: sometimes, indeed, I perceived a sudden impression of pain, and sometimes he stepped short, as if his foot was pierced by the asperities of the way; but the sprightliness of his countenance instantly returned, and he pressed forward without appearance of repining or complaint.

I turned again towards the angel, impatient to enquire from what secret source happiness was derived, in a situation so different from that in which it might have been expected: but he again prevented my requested: “Almet,” said he, “remember what thou hast seen, and let this memorial be written upon the tablets of thy heart. Remember, Almet, that the world in which thou art placed, is but the road to another; and that happiness depends not upon the path, but the end; the value of this period of thy existence is fixed by hope and fear. The wretch who wished to linger in the garden, who looked round upon its limits with terror, was destitute of hope, and was perpetually tormented by the dread of losing that which yet he did not enjoy; the song of the birds had been repeated till it was not heard, and the flowers had so often recurred, that their beauty was not seen; the river glided by unnoticed; and he feared to lift his eye to the prospect, lest he should behold the waste that circumscribed it. But he that toiled through the valley was happy, because he looked forward with hope. Thus to the sojourner upon earth it is of little moment whether the path he treads be strewed with flowers or with thorns, if he perceives himself to approach these regions, in comparison of which the thorns and the flowers of this wilderness lose their distinction, and are both alike impotent to give pleasure or pain.

“What then has Eternal Wisdom unequally distributed? That which can make every station happy, and without which every station must be wretched, is acquired by virtue, and virtue is possible to all. Remember, Almet, the vision which thou hast seen; and let my words be written on the tablet of thy heart, that thou mayest direct the wanderer to happiness, and justify God to men.”

While the voice of Azoran was yet sounding in my ear, the prospect vanished from before me, and I found myself again sitting at the porch of the temple. The sun was gone down, the multitude was retired to rest, and the solemn quiet of midnight concurred with the resolution of my doubts to complete the tranquillity of my mind.

Such, my son, was the vision which the Prophet vouchsafed me, not for my sake only, but for thine. Thou hast sought felicity in temporal things; and, therefore, thou art disappointed. Let not instruction be lost upon thee, as the seal of Mahomet in the well of Aris: but go thy way, let thy flock clothe the naked, and thy table feed the hungry; deliver the poor from oppression, and let thy conversation be Above. Thus shalt thou “rejoice in Hope,” and look forward to the end of life as the consummation of thy felicity.

Almet, in whose breast devotion kindled as he spake, returned into the temple, and the stranger departed in peace.