This tale is also found in the Persian _Bakhtyar Nama_ (or the Ten Vazirs), the precise date of which has not been ascertained, but a MS. Turki (Uygur) version of it, preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, bears to have been written in 1434; the Persian text must therefore have been composed before that date. In the text translated by Sir William Ouseley, in place of the daughter of the kaysar of Rome it is the daughter of the king of Irak whom the king of Abyssinia marries, after subduing the power of her father; and, so far from a present of jewels to her being the occasion of her mentioning her son, in the condition of a slave, it is said that one day the king behaved harshly to her, and spoke disrespectfully of her father, upon which she boasted that her father had in his service a youth of great beauty and possessed of every accomplishment, which excited the king's desire to have him brought to his court; and the merchant smuggled the youth out of the country of Irak concealed in a chest, placed on the back of a camel. In Lescallier's French translation it is said that the youth was the fruit of a _liaison_ of the princess, unknown to her father; that his education was secretly entrusted to certain servants; and that the princess afterwards contrived to introduce the boy to her father, who was so charmed with his beauty, grace of manner, and accomplishments, that he at once took him into his service. Thus widely do manuscripts of the same Eastern work vary! _The King and his Seven Vazirs._ On the Eighth Night the Parrot relates, in a very abridged form, the story of the prince who was falsely accused by one of his father's women of having made love to her, and who was saved by the tales which the royal counsellors related to the king in turn during seven consecutive days. The original of this romance is the _Book of Sindibad_, so named after the prince's tutor, Sindibad the sage: the Arabic version is known under the title of the _Seven Vazirs_; the Hebrew, _Mishle Sandabar_; the Greek, _Syntipas_; and the Syriac, _Sindban_; and its European modifications, the _Seven Wise Masters_. In the Parrot-Book the first to the sixth vazirs each relate one story only, and the damsel has no stories (all other Eastern versions give two to each of the seven, and six to the queen); the seventh vazir simply appears on the seventh day and makes clear the innocence of the prince. This version, however, though imperfect, is yet of some value in making a comparative study of the several texts. VI THE TREE OF LIFE--LEGEND OF RAJA RASALU--CONCLUSION. Many others of the Parrot's stories might be cited, but we shall merely glance at one more, as it calls up a very ancient and wide-spread legend: _The Tree of Life._