[Illustration:  “‘I had been A broker in Pompeii.’”]

[Illustration:  “‘I lent large sums to the noble knights.’”]

“Was much of it repaid?” I asked.

“Most of it.  The loans were almost always secured by good property.  As I look back upon the vast panorama of my life,” my host continued, after a pause, “I most pleasantly recall my various intimacies with learned men, and my own studies and researches; but in the great company of men of knowledge whom I have known, there was not one in whom I was so much interested as in King Solomon.  I visited his court because I greatly wished to know a man who knew so much.  It was not difficult to obtain access to him, for I came as a stranger from Ethiopia, to the east of Ethiopia, to the east of the Red Sea, and the king was always anxious to see intelligent people from foreign parts.  I was able to tell him a good deal which he did not know, and he became fond of my society.

“I found Solomon a very well-informed man.  He had not read and studied books as much as I had, and he had not had my advantages of direct intercourse with learned men; but he was a most earnest and indefatigable student of nature.  I believe he knew more about natural history than any human being then living, or who had preceded him.  Whenever it was possible for him to do so, he studied animal nature from the living model, and all the beasts, birds, and fishes which it was possible for him to obtain alive were quartered in the grounds of his palace.  In a certain way he was an animal-tamer.  You may well imagine that this great king’s wonderful possessions, as well as the man himself, were the source of continual delight to me.

“The time-honored story of Solomon’s carpet on which he mounted and was wafted away to any place, with his retinue, had a good deal of foundation in fact; for Solomon was an exceedingly ingenious man, and not only constructed parachutes by which people could safely descend from great heights, but he made some attempts in the direction of ballooning.  I have seen small bags of thin silk, covered with a fine varnish made of gum to render them air-tight, which, being inflated with hot air and properly ballasted, rose high above the earth, and were wafted out of sight by the wind.  Many people supposed that in the course of time Solomon would be able to travel through the air, and from this idea was derived the tradition that he really did so.

“Another of the interesting legends regarding King Solomon concerned his dominion over the Jinns.  These people, of whom so much has been written and handed down by word of mouth, and who were supposed by subsequent generations to be a race of servile demons, were, in reality, savage natives of surrounding countries, who were forced by the king to work on his great buildings and other enterprises, and who occupied very much the position of the coolies of the present day.  But that story of the dead Solomon and the Jinns who were at work on the temple gives a good idea of one of the most important characteristics of this great ruler.  He was a man who gave personal attention to all his affairs, and was in the habit of overseeing the laborers on his public works.  Do you remember the story to which I refer?”