Now when Shahrazad had ended her story of the two Sindbads, Dinarzad exclaimed, “O my sister, how pleasant is thy tale and how tasteful! How sweet and how grateful!” She replied, “And what is this compared with that I could tell thee to-morrow night?” Quoth the King, “What may it be?” And she said:—It is a tale touching THE CITY OF BRASS.[FN#104] It is related that there was, in tide of yore and in times and years long gone before, at Damascus of Syria, a Caliph known as Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, the fifth of the Ommiade house. As this Commander of the Faithful was seated one day in his palace, conversing with his Sultans and Kings and the Grandees of his empire, the talk turned upon the legends of past peoples and the traditions of our lord Solomon, David’s son (on the twain be peace!), and on that which Allah Almighty had bestowed on him of lordship and dominion over men and Jinn and birds and beasts and reptiles and the wind and other created things; and quoth the Caliph, “Of a truth we hear from those who forewent us that the Lord (extolled and exalted be He!) vouchsafed unto none the like of that which He vouchsafed unto our lord Solomon and that he attained unto that whereto never attained other than he, in that he was wont to imprison Jinns and Marids and Satans in cucurbites of copper and to stop them with lead and seal[FN#105] them with his ring.”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say. When it was the Five Hundred and Sixty-seventh Night,