and horrors, and extraordinary and wonderful things.  Moreover, thou art a warrior for the defense of the faith, and our country is near unto the enemy; so perhaps the Christians may come forth during our absence; it is expedient, therefore, that thou leave in thy province one to govern it.—­He replied, Well.  And he left his son Haroon as his substitute in his province, exacted an oath of fidelity to him, and commanded the troops that they should not oppose him, but obey him in all that he should order them to do.  And they heard his words, and obeyed him.  His son Haroon was of great courage, an illustrious hero, and a bold champion; and the sheykh ’Abd-Es-Samad pretended to him that the place in which were the things that the Prince of the Faithful desired was four months’ journey distant, on the shore of the sea, and that throughout the whole route were halting-places, adjacent one to another, and grass and springs.  And he said, God will assuredly make this affair easy to us through the blessing attendant upon thee, O Viceroy of the Prince of the Faithful.  Then the Emeer Moosa said, Knowest thou if any one of the Kings have trodden this land before us?  He answered him, Yes, O Emeer:  this land belonged to the King of Alexandria, Darius the Greek.

[The cavalcade fare on, and soon reach a first “extraordinary and wonderful thing,”—­the palace-tomb of great “Koosh, the son of Sheddad,” full of impressive mortuary inscriptions that set the party all a-weeping.  Thence—­]

The soldiers proceeded, with the sheykh ’Abd-Es-Samad before them showing them the way, until all the first day had passed, and the second, and the third.  They then came to a high hill, at which they looked, and lo, upon it was a horseman of brass, on the top of whose spear was a wide and glistening head that almost deprived the beholder of sight, and on it was inscribed, O thou who comest unto me, if thou know not the way that leadeth to the City of Brass, rub the hand of the horseman, and he will turn, and then will stop, and in whatsoever direction he stoppeth, thither proceed, without fear and without difficulty; for it will lead thee to the City of Brass.—­And when the Emeer Moosa had rubbed the hand of the horseman, it turned like the blinding lightning, and faced a different direction from that in which they were traveling.

The party therefore turned thither and journeyed on, and it was the right way.  They took that route, and continued their course the same day and the next night until they had traversed a wide tract of country.  And as they were proceeding, one day, they came to a pillar of black stone, wherein was a person sunk to his arm-pits, and he had two huge wings, and four arms; two of them like those of the sons of Adam, and two like the forelegs of lions, with claws.  He had hair upon his head like the tails of horses, and two eyes like two burning coals, and he had a third eye, in his forehead, like the eye of the lynx, from