country which the king had not seen, and she brought hence a remarkable piece of news. In the land of Saba (Sheba) a woman reigned who received all the honour due to a great prince. She had a magnificent throne of gold and silver; she and her people worshipped the Sun besides God. Satan, added the lapwing, becoming controversial, had turned them away from the truth lest they should worship the true God, from whom nothing is hid. And then this little bird of a story like a fairy-tale ends her discourse with one of those sharp, sudden, antithetical organ-blasts which again and again lift the mind of the reader of the Koran into the highest regions of poetry and religion: “God! there is no God but He; the Lord of the Magnificent Throne!” What wonderful art there is in the repetition of the words which had been applied just before to earthly splendour! The effect is the same as that of the words in Arabic which we see carved at every turn in the splendid halls of the Alhambra: “God only is conqueror.” What is the splendour or the power of earthly kings? The story resumes its course. Solomon tells the lapwing that they will see, by and by, if she has told the truth or is a liar. He writes a letter (which tradition says was perfumed with musk and sealed with the king’s signet), and he commands the bird to take it to the land of Saba. Some say that the lapwing delivered the letter by throwing it into the queen’s bosom as she sat surrounded by her army; others that she brought it to her through an open window when she was sitting in her chamber: at any rate, it reached its destination, and the lapwing’s character was completely rehabilitated. With regard to Queen Balkis, the Bible, the Koran, and the Emperor Menelek may be consulted.