The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01Anonymous
General
The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01
Anonymous
Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Folklore -- Arab countries
I ought not to forget, madam, to acquaint you, that this
delicious orchard was watered after a very particular manner;
there were channels so artificially and proportionably digged,
that they carried water in abundance to the roots of such trees
as wanted it for making them produce their leaves and flowers.
Some carried it to those that had their fruit budded;* Others
carried it in lesser quantities to those whose fruit was growing
big; and others carried only so much as was just requisite to
water those which had their fruit come to perfection, and only
wanted to be ripened. They exceeded the ordinary fruits of our
gardens very much in bigness; and, lastly, those channels that
watered the trees whose fruits were ripe, had no more moisture
than what would just preserve them from withering. I could never
be weary to look at and admire so sweet a place; and I should
never have left it, had I not conceived a greater idea of the
other things which I had not seen. I went out at last with my
mind filled with those wonders; I shut that door, and opened the
next. Instead of an orchard, I found a flower-garden, which was
no less extraordinary of its kind; it contained a spacious plot,
not watered so profusely as the former, but with greater
niceness, furnishing no more water than just what each flower
required. The roses, jessamines, violets, dills, hyacinths,
wind-flowers, tulips, crowsfoots, pinks, lilies, and an infinite
number of other flowers, which do not grow in other places but at
certain times, were there flourishing all at once; and nothing
could be more delicious than the fragrant smell of this garden.
I opened the third door, where I found a large volary, paved with
marble of several fine colours that were not common. The cage was
made of sanders and wood of aloes: it contained a vast number of
nightingales, goldfinches, canary birds, larks, and other rare
singing-birds which I never heard of; and the vessels that held
their seed and water were of the most precious jasper or agate.
Besides, this volary was so exceedingly neat, that, considering
its extent, one would think there could not be less than an
hundred persons to keep it so clean as it was; but all this while
not one soul appeared, either here or in the gardens where I had
been, and yet I could not perceive a weed or any superfluous
thing there. The sun went down, and I retired, being perfectly
charmed with the chirping notes of the multitude of birds, which
then began to perch upon such places as were convenient for them
to repose on during the night. I went to my chamber, resolving to
open all the rest of the doors the day following, except the
golden one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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