All the birds that were lovely to look at or charming to hear singing were in that garden. The black birds with golden wings from my own country were there, and the birds of paradise from the Land of the Burning Mountain. And it was told that the nightingales of Persia and Babylon and Arabia brought their young here that they might learn to sing the more perfectly. Also there were mocking birds that mocked every bird’s song but the song of the nightingale. As for the beasts in the King’s gardens, the first one I made friends with was a lynx. He was not in a cage, but went roaming about, watching everything with eyes that never winked. And after I had come to know him and had made friends with him, the lynx brought me to the cages and the pits of the other beasts and with them I made friends. Of all the creatures that were there the one I was most fearful of was the queen serpent that was in the Pit of the Serpent. But the serpent allured me, and I used to sit above the pit, the lynx beside me, and watch her as she uncoiled herself and swayed her head about. And as I watched her I would beat on a little drum that I carried with me. I began to see that as I beat the drum and made music for her the serpent’s head would cease to sway and she would lower it, and then she would rest upon her coils as if she were sleeping. So I grew to have power over the serpent, and many times when I saw her try to draw down a bird that had come to the edge of the pit, I would beat upon the drum until her head sank down, when the bird would rouse itself out of the spell that the serpent’s eyes had for it, and fly away. So I stayed in the King’s gardens, part of the day with the thousand ducks that were about the lake, and part of the day with the ever-watchful lynx that went here and went there. One day I came up from the lake after having decked myself with the blue herons’ feathers that lay about. I saw two where none but the King or the King’s ancient dwarf ever came. One was a man who wore a straight garment that had curious figures woven upon it, and who carried in his hand a staff that was formed of two serpents twining together. The one who was with him was a boy, and my heart went out to him because he was young, and I had seen no one who was young in my days in Babylon. The two walked in the gardens, and I ran and hid from them. A day came soon after when I came up from the lake and did not find the lynx who was my friend. I went searching for him, and at last I came upon him. He had gone up into one of the great chariots that were for a monument to a King. I saw him watching across the chariot. I went beside him, and the lynx did not move, but kept watching, watching.