of strange cities. At last they mentioned Egypt, and one of my uncles said, "Travellers tell us that there is not on earth's face aught fairer than Cairo and her Nile;" and these words made me long to see Cairo. Quoth my father, "Whoso hath not seen Cairo hath not seen the world. Her dust is golden and her Nile a miracle holden; and her women are as Houris fair; puppets, beautiful pictures; her houses are palaces rare; her water is sweet and light[FN#575] and her mud a commodity and a medicine beyond compare, even as said the poet in this his poetry:— The Nile[FN#576] flood this day is the gain you own; * You alone in such gain and bounties wone: The Nile is my tear flood of severance, * And here none is forlorn but I alone. Moreover temperate is her air, and with fragrance blent, Which surpasseth aloes wood in scent; and how should it be otherwise, she being the Mother of the World? And Allah favour him who wrote these lines:— An I quit Cairo and her pleasaunces, * Where can I wend to find so gladsome ways? Shall I desert that site, whose grateful scents * Joy every soul and call for loudest praise? Where every palace, as another Eden, * Carpets and cushions richly wrought displays; A city wooing sight and sprite to glee, * Where Saint meets Sinner and each 'joys his craze; Where friend meets friend, by Providence united * In greeny garden and in palmy maze: People of Cairo, and by Allah's doom * I fare, with you in thoughts I wone always! Whisper not Cairo in the ear of Zephyr, * Lest for her like of garden scents he reave her.[FN#577] And if your eyes saw her earth, and the adornment thereof with bloom, and the purfling of it with all manner blossoms, and the islands of the Nile and how much is therein of wide spread and goodly prospect, and if you bent your sight upon the Abyssinian Pond,[FN#578] your glance would not revert from the scene quit of wonder; for nowhere would you behold the fellow of that lovely view; and, indeed, the two arms of the Nile embrace most luxuriant verdure,[FN#579] as the white of the eye encompasseth its black or like filagree'd silver surrounding chrysolites. And divinely gifted was the poet who there anent said these couplets:— By th' Abyssinian Pond, O day divine!* In morning twilight and in sunny shine: The water prisoned in its verdurous walls, * Like sabre flashes before shrinking eyne: And in The Garden sat we while it drains * Slow draught, with purfled sides dyed finest fine: The stream is rippled by the hands of clouds; * We too, a-rippling, on our rugs recline, Passing pure wine, and whoso leaves us there * Shall ne'er arise from fall his woes design: Draining long draughts from large and brimming bowls, * Administ'ring thirst's only medicine—wine.