When it was the Nine Hundred and Seventy-sixth Night, She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Halimah said to Kamar al-Zaman, "An thou wish for safety, travel with me by other than the wonted way," he replied, "Hearing and obeying;" and, taking a road other than that used by folk, fared on without ceasing from region to region till he reached the confines of Egypt-land[FN#436] and sent his sire a letter by a runner. Now his father the merchant Abd al-Rahman was sitting in the market among the merchants, with a heart on fire for separation from his son, because no news of the youth had reached him since the day of his departure; and while he was in such case the runner came up and cried, "O my lords, which of you is called the merchant Abd al-Rahman?" They said, "What wouldst thou of him?"; and he said, "I have a letter for him from his son Kamar al-Zaman, whom I left at Al-Arнsh."[FN#437] At this Abd al-Rahman rejoiced and his breast was broadened and the merchants rejoiced for him and gave him joy of his son's safety. Then he opened the letter and read as follows, "From Kamar al-Zaman to the merchant Abd al-Rahman. And after Peace be upon thee and upon all the merchants! An ye ask concerning us, to Allah be the praise and the thanks. Indeed we have sold and bought and gained and are come back in health, wealth and weal." Whereupon Abd al-Rahman opened the door[FN#438] of rejoicing and made banquets and gave feasts and entertainments galore, sending for instruments of music and addressing himself to festivities after rarest fashion. When Kamar al-Zaman came to Al-Sбlihiyah,[FN#439] his father and all the merchants went forth to meet him, and Abd al-Rahman embraced him and strained him to his bosom and sobbed till he swooned away. When he came to himself he said, "Oh, 'tis a boon day O my son, whereon the Omnipotent Protector hath reunited us with thee!" And he repeated the words of the bard, "The return of the friend is the best of all boons, * And the joy- cup circles o' morns and noons: So well come, welcome, fair welcome to thee, * The light of the time and the moon o' full moons." Then, for excess of joy, he poured forth a flood of tears from his eyes and he recited also these two couplets, "The Moon o' the Time,[FN#440] shows unveilиd light; * And, his journey done, at our door doth alight: His locks as the nights of his absence are black * And the sun upstands from his collar's[FN#441] white."