[27] Harith, being in affluence, crosses from Irak to Damascus to enjoy the luxury of that city. After he has had his fill of pleasure he bethinks himself of returning homeward, and joins a caravan that is about to cross the Semaweh, the desert which lies between Syria and the Euphrates. The travelers are ready to depart, but are delayed by their inability to find an escort, which they think indispensable for their protection against robbers. While they are consulting they are watched by a dervish, who at last announces to them that he has the means of keeping them safe from harm; and, on their inquiring further, tells them that his safeguard is a magic form of words revealed to him in a dream. They are at first incredulous, but at length consent to take him with them, and to use his incantation. He then repeats it, and it proves to be a prayer full of assonances and rhymes, beseeching the general protection of the Almighty. They all learn it by heart and then set forth, repeating it twice a day on their journey. As they are not molested on the road they judge the charm to have been successful; and when they come in sight of 'Anah, the first town on the other side of the desert, they reward him richly with what he likes best, gold and jewels. When he has taken all he can get, he makes his escape, and the next thing they hear of him is that he is drinking in the taverns of 'Anah, a city celebrated for its wine. Harith, shocked at this enormity in a pious dervish, determines to seek him out, and soon finds him reveling amid wine and music in the guest-chamber of a wine-shop. He taxes him with his wickedness, and then the old man improvises a Bacchanalian chant, which is one of the finest pieces in Hariri's work. In form this poem resembles that which is introduced into the last Assembly, though the meter is more light and lively, as Hariri, no doubt, desired to display his genius by the contrast. This Assembly is one of the most admired productions of the author, who has lavished on it all the resources of his marvelous rhetoric. [28] Maisuna was a daughter of the tribe of Calab; a tribe, according to Abulfeda, remarkable both for the purity of dialect spoken in it, and for the number of poets it had produced. She was married, whilst very young, to the Caliph Mowiah. But this exalted situation by no means suited the disposition of Maisuna, and amidst all the pomp and splendor of Damascus, she languished for the simple pleasures of her native desert. [29] Yazid succeeded Mowiah in the Caliphate A.H. 60; and in most respects showed himself to be of a very different disposition from his predecessor. He was naturally cruel, avaricious, and debauched; but instead of concealing his vices from the eyes of his subjects, he seemed to make a parade of those actions which he knew no good Mussulman could look upon without horror; he drank wine in public, he caressed his dogs, and was waited upon by his eunuchs in sight of the whole court.