Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
General
Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
Children's literature
Aladdin jumped into the cave, descended the steps, and found the three
halls just as the African magician had described. He went through them
with all the precaution the fear of death could inspire; crossed the
garden without stopping, took down the lamp from the niche, threw out
the wick and the liquor, and, as the magician had desired, put it in
his vestband. But as he came down from the terrace, seeing it was
perfectly dry, he stopped in the garden to observe the fruit, which he
only had a glimpse of in crossing it. All the trees were loaded with
extraordinary fruit, of different colors on each tree. Some bore fruit
entirely white, and some clear and transparent as crystal; some pale
red, and others deeper; some green, blue, and purple, and others
yellow: in short, there was fruit of all colors. The white were pearls;
the clear and transparent, diamonds; the deep red, rubies; the paler,
balas rubies; the green, emeralds; the blue, turquoises; the purple,
amethysts; and those that were of yellow cast, sapphires. Aladdin was
altogether ignorant of their worth, and would have preferred figs and
grapes, or any other fruits. But though he took them only for colored
glass of little value, yet he was so pleased with the variety of the
colors, and the beauty and extraordinary size of the seeming fruit,
that he resolved to gather some of every sort, and accordingly filled
the two new purses his uncle had bought for him with his clothes. Some
he wrapped up in the skirts of his vest, which was of silk, large and
wrapping, and crammed his bosom as full as it could hold.
Aladdin, having thus loaded himself with riches he knew not the value
of, returned through the three halls with the same precaution, made all
the haste he could, that he might not make his uncle wait, and soon
arrived at the mouth of the cave, where the African magician expected
him with the utmost impatience. As soon as Aladdin saw him, he cried
out, "Pray, uncle, lend me your hand, to help me out." "Give me the
lamp first," replied the magician; "it will be troublesome to you."
"Indeed, uncle," answered Aladdin, "I cannot now; it is not troublesome
to me: but I will as soon as I am up." The African magician was so
obstinate, that he would have the lamp before he would help him up; and
Aladdin, who had encumbered himself so much with his fruit that he
could not well get at it, refused to give it to him till he was out of
the cave. The African magician, provoked at this obstinate refusal,
flew into a passion, threw a little of his incense into the fire, which
he had taken care to keep in, and no sooner pronounced two magical
words, than the stone which had closed the mouth of the cave moved into
its place, with the earth over it in the same manner as it lay at the
arrival of the magician and Aladdin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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