Being thus afflicted, he went to the sultan’s palace, and falling prostrate at his feet, most humbly prayed him to give him leave to make a journey into the provinces of the Levant, and particularly to Balsora, in search of his nephew Bedreddin Hassan. For he could not bear any longer that the people of the city should believe a genie had got his daughter with child. The sultan was much concerned at the vizier’s affliction, approved his resolution, and gave him leave to go. He caused a passport also to be written for him, praying, in the most obliging terms that could be, all kings and princes, in whose dominions the said Bedreddin might sojourn, to grant that the vizier might bring him along with him. Schemseddin Mohammed, not knowing how to express his thankfulness to the sultan for this favour, thought it his duty to fall down before him a second time, and the floods of tears he shed gave him sufficient testimony of his gratitude. At last, having wished the sultan all manner of prosperity, he took his leave, and went home to his house, where he disposed every thing for his journey; and the preparations for it were carried on with so much diligence, that in four days after he left the city, accompanied by his daughter the lady of beauty, and his grandson, Agib. They travelled nineteen days without stopping any where; but on the twentieth, arriving in a very pleasant mead, at a small distance from the gate of Damascus, they stopped there, and pitched their tents upon the banks of a river, that runs through the town, and gives a very agreeable prospect to its neighbourhood. The vizier Schemseddin Mohammed declared he would stay in that pleasant place two days, and pursue his journey on the third. In the mean time he gave leave to his retinue to go to Damascus: and almost all of them made use of it: some influenced by curiosity to see a city they had heard so much of, and others by the opportunity of vending there the Egyptian goods they had brought with them, or buying stuffs, and the rarities of the country. The beautiful lady desiring her son Agib might share in the satisfaction of viewing that celebrated city, ordered the black eunuch that acted in quality of his governor, to conduct him thither, and take care he came to no harm.