But no description of Bagdad is complete without some account of its more eminent Caliphs, especially of its immortal Harun-Al-Rashid, who is “inseparably associated with the most charming collection of stories ever invented for the solace and delight of mankind.” This brilliant Saracen ruler has long been ranked among the illustrious men of all time. For, notwithstanding the fact that from time immemorial legends have gathered around his name in greater number than about those of King Arthur, or Charlemagne, or Frederick Barbarossa, authentic history tells us enough of his character and achievements to make the romantic life of “Aaron the Just”--to Anglicize his name--one of supreme fascination and abiding interest. The Arabians [Sismondi writes] are indebted to him for the rapid progress which they made in science and literature, for Harun never built a mosque without attaching to it a school. His successors followed his example, and in a short period the sciences which were cultivated in the capital spread themselves to the very extremities of the empire of the Caliphs. Whenever the faithful assembled to adore the Divinity, they found in this temple an opportunity of rendering Him the noblest homage which His creatures can pay--by the cultivation of those faculties with which their Creator has endowed them. Harun-Al-Rashid, besides, was sufficiently superior to the fanaticism which had previously animated his sect not to despise the knowledge which the professors of another faith possessed. The head of his schools and the first director of studies in his empire was a Nestorian Christian of Damascus, of the name of John Ebn Mesua.[436] Christians were the translators of the works of Plato and Aristotle; of Galen, Hippocrates, and Dioscorides; of Ptolemy, Euclid, and Apollonius Pergæus. No Caliph ever gathered round him so great a number of learned men:--poets, jurists, grammarians, cadis and scribes,--to say nothing of the wits and musicians who enjoyed his patronage. Personally, too, he had every quality that could recommend him to the literary men of his time. Harun himself was an accomplished scholar and an excellent poet; he was well versed in history, tradition and poetry which he could always quote on appropriate occasions. He possessed exquisite literary taste and unerring discernment and his dignified demeanor made him an object of profound respect to high and low.[437] He was, indeed, as described by his biographers, “the most accomplished, eloquent and generous of the Caliphs,” and the stories that are told of his lavish generosity towards scholars who frequented his court proved that he was probably the most munificent patron of men of science and letters that ever lived.