cannot give me greater pleasure, as I wish to have him for my grand vizier and bestow you upon him for a wife.”--“I am ready, sire,” answered the princess, “to obey you in all things you please to command.” The Queen of Beauty then went to her apartment, and returned with a knife which had some Hebrew characters engraved on the blade. She desired the sultan, the chief of the eunuchs, the little slave, and myself, to go down into a secret court of the palace; and then leaving us under a gallery which surrounded the court, she went into the middle of it, where she described a large circle, and traced several words both in the ancient Arabic characters, and those which are called the characters of Cleopatra. When she had done this, and prepared the circle in the manner she wished, she went and placed herself in the midst of it, where she began making her abjurations, and repeating some verses from the koran. By degrees the air became obscure as if night was coming on, and the whole world was vanishing. We were seized with the greatest fright, and this was the more increased when we saw the Genius, the son of the daughter of Eblis, suddenly appear in the shape of a large dreadful lion. The princess no sooner perceived this monster than she said to it, “Dog, instead of cringing before me, how darest thou present thyself under this horrible form, thinking to alarm me?”--“And how darest thou,” replied the lion, “break the treaty which we have made and confirmed by a solemn oath not to injure each other?”--“Ah, wretch,” added the princess, “thou art the person I am to reproach on that account.”--“Thou shalt pay dearly,” interrupted the lion, “for the trouble thou hast given me of coming here.” In saying this, he opened his horrible jaws and advanced forward to devour her. But she, being on her guard, jumped back, and had just time to pluck out a hair, and pronouncing two or three words, she changed it into a sharp scythe, with which she immediately cut the lion in pieces through the middle. The two parts of the lion directly disappeared, and the head only remained, which changed into a large scorpion. The princess then took the form of a serpent, and began a fierce combat with the scorpion, which, finding itself in danger of being defeated, changed into an eagle and flew away. But the serpent then became another eagle, black, and more powerful, and went in pursuit of it. We now lost sight of them for some time.