its
original metals. Thus, by his unjust credulity, was a weak prince
punished for his ungrateful folly. The barber and his son also
were not to be found, so that the sultan could gain no
intelligence of the dervish, and he and his courtiers became the
laughingstock of the populace for years after their merited
chastisement.

ADVENTURES OF ALEEFA, DAUGHTER OF
MHEREJAUN, SULTAN OF HIND, AND EUSUFF, SON
OF SOHUL, SULTAN OF SIND.

Mherejaun, sultan of Hind, was many years without any progeny,
and immersed in melancholy at the thought of his kingdom's
passing to another family. One evening, while indulging his
gloomy thoughts, he dropped into a doze, from which he was roused
by a voice exclaiming, "Sultan, thy wife this night shall
conceive. If she bears a son, he will increase the glory of thy
house; but if a daughter, she will occasion thee disgrace and
misfortune." In due time the favourite sultana was delivered of a
daughter, to the great mortification of the parents, who would
have destroyed her had not her infant smiles diverted their
anger. She was brought up in the strictest privacy, and at the
end of twelve years the sultan had her conveyed to a strong
citadel erected in the middle of a deep lake, hoping in such a
confinement to prevent her from fulfilling the prediction which
had been made concerning her. Nothing could excel the
magnificence of her abode, where she was left only with female
attendants of the highest accomplishments, but no male was
allowed to approach even the borders of the lake, except when
supplies were conveyed for the use of its fair inhabitants, who
were then restricted to their apartments. The gate of the citadel
was entrusted to the care of an old lady, the princess's nurse.
For three years the fair Aleefa lived happy in her splendid
prison, but the decree of fate was not to be overcome, and an
event predestined by heaven overturned the cautious project of
sultan Mherejaun.

Eusuff, a dissipated young prince, son to the sultan of Sind,
having offended his father, fled from his court, and with a few
attendants reached the borders of the lake, in his way to seek an
asylum in the territories of Mherejaun. Curious to know who
inhabited the citadel in the midst of it, he swam over the lake,
and landed at the gate, which he found shut, but no one answered
his loudest call for admission. Upon this he wrote a note,
requesting compassio