After we had done bathing, we sat down to table; and after some other discourse together, he asked me if it would be any prejudice to his health if he went and took a walk out of town in the governor’s garden? I made answer, so far from it, that the air would benefit his health. Since it is so, said he, if you will give me your company, I will tell you the history of my adventures. I replied, I was at his command for all that day. Upon which he presently called his servants to bring something for a collation, and we went to the governor’s garden. There we took two or three turns, and then sat down upon a carpet that his servants had spread under a tree, which gave a very pleasant shade. After we were seated, the young man gave me his history in the following terms: I was born, said he, at Moussoul, of one of the most considerable families in the city. My father was the eldest of ten brothers, who were all alive and married when my grandfather died. All the brothers were childless, but my father; and he has no child but me. He took particular care of my education, and made me learn every thing proper for a child of my rank. When I was grown up, and began to keep company with the world, I happened one Friday to be at noon-prayers with my father and my uncles in the great mosque of Moussoul. And after prayers were over, the rest of the company going away, my father and my uncles continued sitting upon the best carpet in the mosque; and I sat down by them. They discoursed of several things, but the conversation fell insensibly, I know not how, upon the subject of voyages. They extolled the beauties and peculiar rarities of some kingdoms, and of their principal cities. But one of my uncles said, that according to the uniform report of an infinite number of voyagers, there was not in the world a pleasanter country than Egypt and the Nile; and the account he gave of them infused into me such a charming idea of them, that from that very moment I had a desire to travel thither. Whatever my other uncles said, by way of preference to Bagdad and the Tigris, in calling Bagdad the true residence of the Mussulman religion, and the metropolis of all the cities of the earth, made no impression upon me. My father joined in opinion with those of his brothers who had spoken in favour of Egypt; which filled me with joy. Say what you will, said he, the man that has not seen Egypt, has not seen the greatest rarity in the world. All the land there is golden; I mean, it is so fertile that it enriches its inhabitants. All the women of that country charm you by their beauty and their agreeable carriage. If you speak of the Nile, where is there a more wonderful river? What water was ever lighter or more delicious? The very slime it carries along in its overflowing fattens the fields, which produce a thousand times more than other countries that are cultivated with the greatest labour. Observe what a poet said of the