the
square of the palace, before the emperor his father's apartment,
who deferred the solemnization of the marriage no longer than
till he could make the preparations necessary to render the
ceremony pompous and magnificent, and evince the interest he took
in it.

After the days appointed for the rejoicings were over, the
emperor of Persia's first care was to name and appoint an
ambassador to go to the Rajah of Bengal with an account of what
had passed, and to demand his approbation and ratification of the
alliance contracted by this marriage; which the Rajah of Bengal
took as an honour, and granted with great pleasure and
satisfaction.

THE STORY OF PRINCE AHMED, AND THE FAIRY
PERIE BANOU.

There was a sultan who had peaceably filled the throne of India
many years, and had the satisfaction in his old age to have three
sons the worthy imitators of his virtues, who, with the princess
his niece, were the ornaments of his court. The eldest of the
princes was called Houssain, the second Ali, the youngest Ahmed,
and the princess his niece Nouronnihar.

The princess Nouronnihar was the daughter of the younger brother
of the sultan, to whom in his lifetime he had allowed a
considerable revenue. But that prince had not been married long
before he died, and left the princess very young. The sultan, in
consideration of the brotherly love and friendship that had
always subsisted between them, besides a great attachment to his
person, took upon himself the care of his daughter's education,
and brought her up in his palace with the three princes; where
her singular beauty and personal accomplishments, joined to a
lively wit and irreproachable virtue, distinguished her among all
the princesses of her time.

The sultan, her uncle, proposed to marry her when she arrived at
a proper age, and by that means to contract an alliance with some
neighbouring prince; and was thinking seriously on the subject,
when he perceived that the three princes his sons loved her
passionately. This gave him much concern, though his grief did
not proceed from a consideration that their passion prevented his
forming the alliance he designed, but the difficulty he foresaw
to make them agree, and that the two youngest should consent to
yield her up to their eldest brother. He spoke to each of them
apart; and remonstrated on the impossibility of one princess
being the wife of three persons, and the trou