There was once in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before in the parts of Cairo, a merchant named Táj al-Dín who was of the most considerable of the merchants and of the chiefs of the freeborn. But he was given to travelling everywhere and loved to fare over wild and wold, waterless lowland and stony waste, and to journey to the isles of the seas, in quest of dirhams and dinars: wherefore he had in his time encountered dangers and suffered duresse of the way such as would grizzle little children and turn their black hair grey. He was possessed of black slaves and Mamelukes, Eunuchs and concubines, and was the wealthiest of the merchants of his time and the goodliest of them in speech, owning horses and mules and Bactrian camels and dromedaries; sacks great and small of size; goods and merchandise and stuffs such as muslins of Hums, silks and brocades of Ba'allak, cotton of Mery, stuffs of India, gauzes of Baghdad, burnouses of Moorland and Turkish white slaves and Abyssinian castratos and Grecian girls and Egyptian boys; and the coverings of his bales were silk with gold purfled fair, for he was wealthy beyond compare. Furthermore he was rare of comeliness, accomplished in goodliness, and gracious in his kindliness, even as one of his describers doth thus express, "A merchant I spied whose lovers * Were fighting in furious guise: Quoth he, 'Why this turmoil of people?' * Quoth I, 'Trader, for those fine eyes!'" And saith another in his praise and saith well enough to accomplish the wish of him, "Came a merchant to pay us a visit * Whose glance did my heart surprise: Quoth he, 'What surprised thee so?' * Quoth I, 'Trader, 'twas those fine eyes.'" Now that merchant had a son called Ali Nur al-Din, as he were the full moon whenas it meeteth the sight on its fourteenth night, a marvel of beauty and loveliness, a model of form and symmetrical grace, who was sitting one day as was his wont, in his father's shop, selling and buying, giving and taking when the sons of the merchants girt him around and he was amongst them as moon among stars, with brow flower-white and cheeks of rosy light in down the tenderest dight, and body like alabaster-bright even as saith of him the poet, "'Describe me!' a fair one said. * Said I, 'Thou art Beauty's queen.' And, speaking briefest speech, * 'All charms in thee are seen.'" And as saith of him one of his describers, "His mole upon plain of cheek is like * Ambergrís-crumb on marble plate, And his glances likest the sword proclaim * To all Love's rebels 'The Lord is Great!'"[FN#378]