do him the honour to accept them freely.  The king then said that he had been two years continually at war with the king of Ava, by which his treasure was consumed, but if my companion would bargain for them by way of exchange for precious stones, especially rubies, that he would content him for the coral.  Then said my companion to the interpreters, “I pray you give the king to understand that I desire nothing else for my goods than the good-will of his majesty, and therefore that I humbly intreat he may take of my goods what pleases him best without money or payment of my kind.”  When the king heard this, he said that he had often been told the Persians were courteous and liberal men, but that he had never known any one so generous as this, and swore by the head of the devil, that he would try whether he or the Persian were most liberal.  Upon this he ordered one of his attendants to bring him a casket of precious stones.  This casket was a span and a half square, entirely full of rubies, the inside being divided into many compartments where the stones were sorted in order according to their sizes.  When he had opened the casket, he ordered it to be placed before the Persian, desiring him to take of these precious rubies as many as he thought fit.  But my companion, as if still more provoked to generosity by the liberality of the king, spoke to him in these words, “Most high and honourable sovereign!  Such is my sense of your generous conduct to me, that I swear by the head of Mahomet and all the mysteries of his holy religion, that I freely and gladly give you all my goods.  I do not travel in search of gain, but merely from a desire to see the world; in which I have not hitherto found any thing that has given me so much delight as the generous favour your majesty has now been pleased to shew me!” To this the king answered, “Will you yet contend with me in liberality?” Then selecting some rubies from all the compartments in the casket, out of which he took as many as he could hold in his hand, being two hundred rubies, he gave all these to the Persian with most royal munificence, and commanded him not to refuse.  He gave also to each of the Christians two rubies worth not less than a thousand crowns; but those he gave to the Persian were reckoned worth a hundred thousand crowns.  This king therefore certainly exceeds all the kings of the earth in munificence, both in manner and in richness of his gifts.  About this time news came to Pegu that the king of Ava was advancing against him with a vast army, on which the king of Pegu went to meet him with one almost innumerable.