Then he commanded his companions, and they charged upon us all together: we also charged upon them, and we cried out one to another: _the fires rose and the smoke ascended_, the hearts of the combatants were almost cleft asunder, and the battle raged. The birds fought in the air, and the wild _beasts in the dust_; and I contended with Dimiriat until he wearied me and I wearied him; {p. 273} after which I became weak, and my companions and troops were enervated and my tribes were routed." The birds tore out the eyes of the demons, and cut them in pieces until _the earth was covered with the fragments_, like the trunks of palm-trees. "As for me, I flew from before Dimiriat, but he followed me a journey of three months until he overtook me." And Solomon hollowed out the black pillar, and sealed him in it with his signet, and chained him until the day of resurrection. And Talib and his party go on still farther, and find "the City of Brass," a weird, mysterious, lost city, in a desolate land; silent, and all its people dead; a city once of high civilization, with mighty, brazen walls and vast machinery and great mysteries; a city whose inhabitants had perished suddenly in some great calamity. And on the walls were tablets, and on one of them were inscribed these solemn words: "'Where are the kings and the peoples of the earth? They have quitted that which they have built and peopled. And in the grave they are pledged for their past actions. There, after destruction, they have become putrid corpses. Where are the troops? They repelled not nor profited. And where is that which they collected and boarded? The decree of the Lord of the Throne _surprised them_. Neither riches nor refuge saved them from it.' "And they saw the merchants dead in their shops; their skins were dried, and their bones were carious, and they had become examples to him who would be admonished." Everywhere were the dead, "lying upon skins, and appearing almost as if they would speak." Their death seems to have been due to a long period of terrible heat and drought. On a couch was a damsel more beautiful than all the daughters of Adam; she was embalmed, so as to preserve all her charms. Her eyes were of glass, filled with quick {p. 274} silver, which seemed to follow the beholder's every motion. Near her was a tablet of gold, on which was inscribed: