One of this person's countrymen, whom he asserted to be a man of indubitable veracity, was sitting on the roof of a house which he had hired, overlooking the Ganges, and was passing the closing hour of the day, according to his usual custom, in smoking his Persian pipe and feasting his eyes by gazing at the beautiful forms of Indian maidens bathing in the river, when he beheld among them one so lovely that his heart was overpowered with desire to have her for his wife. At nightfall she came to him, and told him that she had observed his emotion and would consent to become his wife; but on the condition that he should never admit another female to take or share her place, and that she should only be with him in the night time. They took the marriage-vow to each other, with none for their witness but God; and great was his happiness, till, one evening, he saw again, among a group of girls in the river, another who excited in him still more powerful emotions. To his surprise, this very form stood before him at the approach of night. He withstood the temptation, mindful of his marriage-vow; she used every allurement, but he was resolute. His fair visitor then told him that she was his wife; that she was a jinneeyeh; and that she would always thenceforward visit him in the form of any females whom he might chance to desire. The Zóba´ah, which is a whirlwind that raises the sand or dust in the form of a pillar of prodigious height, often seen sweeping across the deserts and fields, is believed to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee. To defend themselves from a Jinnee thus "riding in the whirlwind," the Arabs often exclaim, "Iron! Iron!" (Ḥadeed! Ḥadeed!), or, "Iron! thou unlucky!" (Ḥadeed! yá mashoom!) as the Jinn are supposed to have a great dread of that metal: or they exclaim, "God is most great!" (Alláhu akbar!).[41] A similar superstition prevails with respect to the water-spout at sea, as may be seen in the adventures of King Shahriyár in the introduction to the "Thousand and One Nights."