The tale of Kamar Al-Zaman and the Lady Budur is both amusing and interesting. It is truly an Eastern story, full of curious and wonderful situations, and quite a kaleidoscope of passing events, which succeed each other rapidly. The hero and the heroine are a young prince and princess, living in very different parts of the world (space and geography have no place in the "Nights"), and both very averse to matrimony. The one fears the smiles and wiles of woman, the other the tyranny and selfishness of man. A certain Queen of the Jinns, with her assistants, bring the two together one night in the same bed, and separate them in the morning. But the sight that each had had of the other caused them to fall desperately in love, and deep are the lamentations of each over the separation, which continues for some years. At last Kamar Al-Zaman finds his way to his lady-love, the Princess Budur, and they are happily wedded; alas! after a short time, to be again separated. Then follow the adventures of each--the lady becomes a king, and is married to a princess, and rules a country, while Kamar Al-Zaman's fate assigns him the place of an under-gardener. Destiny, however, re-unites them, and the Lady Budur's joke before recognition and re-union is certainly humorous. She makes him further marry the lady that she herself was married to, and a son is born to each, respectively called Amjad and Asaad. When the boys grow up, the mother of each falls violently in love with the son of the other, _i.e._, Budur adores Asaad, and Heyat en Nufus worships Amjad, and the two mothers end by making dishonourable proposals to the two sons. These overtures being indignantly rejected, the mothers, as in all Eastern tales, turn the tables by informing their husband that his sons had made indecent proposals to them. In consequence they are sent off to be slain in the desert, but, from the circumstances which occur there, the executioner spares their lives, and returns with their clothes steeped in a lion's blood, reporting that he has carried out the king's instructions, and quoting their last message to their father: 'Women are very devils, made to work us dole and death; Refuge I seek with God Most High from all their craft and skaith. Prime source are they of all the ills that fall upon mankind, Both in the fortunes of this world and matters of the faith.' The king at once recognises their innocence, and mourns over their loss, building two tombs in their memory, called the Houses of Lamentations, where he spends his days weeping.