“Indeed but the city is fair; there is by the sandy ways a paving all alabaster, and the lanterns along it are of chrysoprase, all night long they shine green, but of amethyst are the lanterns of the balconies.

“As the musicians go along the ways dancers gather about them and dance upon the alabaster pavings, for joy and not for hire.  Sometimes a window opens far up in an ebony palace and a wreath is cast down to a dancer or orchids showered upon them.

“Indeed of many cities have I dreamt but of none fairer, through many marble metropolitan gates hasheesh has led me, but London is its secret, the last gate of all; the ivory bowl has nothing more to show.  And indeed even now the imps that crawl behind me and that will not let me be are plucking me by the elbow and bidding my spirit return, for well they know that I have seen too much.  ‘No, not London,’ they say; and therefore I will speak of some other city, a city of some less mysterious land, and anger not the imps with forbidden things.  I will speak of Persepolis or famous Thebes.”

A shade of annoyance crossed the Sultan’s face, a look of thunder that you had scarcely seen, but in those lands they watched his visage well, and though his spirit was wandering far away and his eyes were bleared with hasheesh yet that storyteller there and then perceived the look that was death, and sent his spirit back at once to London as a man runs into his house when the thunder comes.

“And therefore,” he continued, “in the desiderate city, in London, all their camels are pure white.  Remarkable is the swiftness of their horses, that draw their chariots that are of ivory along those sandy ways and that are of surpassing lightness, they have little bells of silver upon their horses’ heads.  O Friend of God, if you perceived their merchants!  The glory of their dresses in the noonday!  They are no less gorgeous than those butterflies that float about their streets.  They have overcloaks of green and vestments of azure, huge purple flowers blaze on their overcloaks, the work of cunning needles, the centres of the flowers are of gold and the petals of purple.  All their hats are black—­” ("No, no,” said the Sultan)—­“but irises are set about the brims, and green plumes float above the crowns of them.

“They have a river that is named the Thames, on it their ships go up with violet sails bringing incense for the braziers that perfume the streets, new songs exchanged for gold with alien tribes, raw silver for the statues of their heroes, gold to make balconies where the women sit, great sapphires to reward their poets with, the secrets of old cities and strange lands, the earning of the dwellers in far isles, emeralds, diamonds, and the hoards of the sea.  And whenever a ship comes into port and furls its violet sails and the news spreads through London that she has come, then all the merchants go down to the river to barter, and all day long the chariots whirl through the streets, and the sound of their going is a mighty roar all day until evening, their roar is even like—­”